Tumour Angiogenesis: A Growth Area—From John Hunter to Judah Folkman and Beyond

Angiogenesis is the growth of new blood vessels in the body. Abnormal angiogenesis is recognised as a “common denominator” in many disease processes, and the development of angiogenesis inhibitors holds great hope in the ongoing battle against cancer. The field of angiogenesis has roots in the Hunterian era of the late eighteenth century but did not begin to blossom until the early 1970s when the then controversial findings and conclusions of Judah Folkman, the “father of angiogenesis,” were first published. There were only 65 publications with angiogenesis in the title in the 10 years after Folkman first proposed the idea of tumour angiogenesis, compared to over 9,000 publications from the year 2000 to 2010. In this review we will explore the voyage of discovery from the first observations of John Hunter in the eighteenth century, via the struggle faced by Folkman to prove the importance of angiogenesis, and finally how his determination has led to modern angiogenesis inhibitors being used in everyday clinical practice.