Damaged machine governor: cancer cell replication rate: useful analogy?

In a current thread begun by Newton451 ("My Cancer Inconvenience") (a very well presented and thought-provoking thread, BTW) Newt speaks of the mystery (shall we call it that?) of why cancer cells seem to behave like fetal cells, growing and multiplying so rapidly, well beyond the norm. Then he wonders why.

For me, this brought to mind something that had occurred to me sometime back, regarding this fact of wild cancer cell growth. Now seems like a good, relevant time to bring it up. So I would like to offer it as a sort of continuation of Newton451's observation, and invite your comments on it.

(Just a sort of bemused thought from one who is qualified in neither mechanics nor biology, but who sometimes thinks he observes patterns in nature).

Okay, it does seem that sometimes in nature two completely independent systems will display remarkably similar features.

For example, there are many machines out there that have what are called "governors" in them. This is a mechanical device that keeps engine speed steady regardless of engine load, that is, the amount of work the engine must perform. In particular, the faster an engine tries to go, the more the governor works to slow it back down, back to a safer speed. Here’s an illustration of how such a device works:

/www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiYEtnlZLSs

Note from the illustration in this animation that as the hockey-puck-resembling thingy (I'm afraid that's as sophisticated as my own knowledge of mechanical terminology gets) starts to droop down, apparently a bad thing in this case, then the spinning gizmo starts spinning faster, which action moves the hockey puck back into place, and all is well. This cycle repeats itself over and over again as the hockey puck starts to dip, as the situation requires.

It's a self-regulating, effective system within a machine, and done for speed control. There seem to be different kinds of governors (flyball, centrifugal, etc.), but they all do basically the same thing.

But what if the governor becomes damaged, or stops working? Wouldn't the machine then start increasing in speed, start going faster and faster, and with no governor in place to control it, keep moving faster and faster into a dangerous, too-fast mode of operation, until it eventually crashes? Most likely.

Now consider another natural system, that of our bodies' cells. Most of the time our cells reproduce themselves at a normal rate. But when from time to time a cell becomes cancerous, it starts reproducing, faster and faster, out of control, similar to a machine without a governor.

In fact, cells do have gene structures analogous to the governor principle. I just read about them. They are the "proto-oncogenes" and the "tumor-suppressor," as they are called, which operate in a way analogous to that of governors. The former "turn on" cell division, and the latter "turn it off." In cancer, the cells somehow forget how to "turn it off."

More on this:

/www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/articles/cancer.html

So there does seem to be this analogy between control device structure in cells and machines.

You engineer guys help me out here. Do you think there would there be a value in pursuing this analogy? After a little quick websearching, I seem to be unable to find anything which explores this analogy in any detail. Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong places?

Or maybe this similarity has been recognized in the past, discussed, and the conclusion reached that it is of little research value, and therefore no further discussion of it has been needed? Something that looked interesting at first, but turned out to be a "dry well?"

But analogous systems in nature often yield data from one of them that can lead to discoveries in the other. So I would think that a careful study of the governor principle in machine operation might indeed suggest improved ways to study the similar process in cells, and possibly enable us to learn things from the machine analogy that will also apply in cells. That is, perhaps some principle of physics that applies to the operation of the machine governor can translate into a principle of biology applying to cell replication rate. And a known process that is useful in fixing a problem in the machine governor might be copied and translated into a new process that fixes the cell problem.

Just a guess, of course, but one that might have possibilities?

But it still remains that the analogy between machine and cell "speed control" in this regard is rather interesting.

TA –

Thank you very much for a remarkably detailed and expert (as usual) explanation of this on/off process in cancer cells.

I can't say I understood it all, but your description of the process has indeed increased the limited perception that I had of what's going on with this.

I just continue to be glad that we have you around to explain things like this to us.

Awesome analogy 81. I used to work on governors for A/C Propellors, so I have a good understanding of what they are designed to do, and in a lot of cases, how they work, and what happens when they "break".

Interestingly enough, there are 2 different states of "broken" in a governor. Most critical governors have a default state should they stop functioning to prevent a catastrophic failure.

Anyways....if a governor was to break, state 1 would be no top end dampening, so the "machine" would accelerate to its maximum ability and wear out or have a catestrophic failure (only if the "fuel" was available to drive it to limits)

State 2 is where the governing component goes to full engagement. In that case, no power can be made, as the governing is maximum, bleeding off the potential to make power.