Every major transition in biological complexity has left remnants of the previous system embedded inside the new one. This paper proposes that cancer and aging are not independent pathologies but predictable interface failure events between successive embedded substrate layers — mitochondrial bacterial code, transposon viral precursor code, and unicellular replication code — running simultaneously inside multicellular organisms. The framework, termed Embedded Substrate Theory, predicts that the most disease-prone biological systems will be those where interface conflict between adjacent substrate layers is highest. Independent experimental support is provided by the KAIST 2024 reversion study and the 2025 Science Advances cross-mammalian cancer risk findings. Specific intervention targets follow from mapping interface conflict points rather than attacking disease symptoms directly.
Budinny V (2026) studied this question.