Asbestos and disease genomics: is mesothelioma a genomic paradigm?

A paradigm is a set of assumptions that creates a viewpoint of the world. However, as summarized by Carlo Rovelli (Carlo Rovelli, 2016), “scientific knowledge is the process of continuously modifying and improving our conception of the world, selectively and constantly questioning the assumptions on which it is based.” In this Editorial, we aim to challenge the current assumptions surrounding the concept of mesothelioma as a genomic disease through a comprehensive review of our understanding of disease pathogenesis and integration of recent findings reported in this Research Topic (Leinardi et al.; Sekido and Sato; Farahmand et al.; Fisher et al.).