There's the known linkage.
This says nothing about the runtime dynamics or higher order interactions, which involve heavy calculus.
This says nothing about the biochemistry under anything but isolated laboratory conditions.
This also doesn't deal with anything above the cellular level. In fact, these are just chemicals in solution--none of the intracellular systems with their own local chemistries are modeled here, and those are maddeningly complicated in their own right. If you think our biological understanding has progressed to the point where gleaning simple information about single edges in this graph are elementary, think again.
Most people have heard about the genome, for which we now have punchcard-level technology to deal with. The methylome sits on top of that, annotating the genome with important dynamic state. Then there's the transcriptome--utilizing nucleic acids, it's just one instance of intracellular messaging. The RNA field is extremely complicated due to its chemistry, which makes it annoyingly difficult to study. (Also, RNA isn't just messaging.)
Want to get at some systems-level interactions? There are the metabolome, reactome, interactome... And we're still at the sub-cellular level. I didn't even mention proteins, which seem to be somewhat important to the study of cancer. (Actually, entire immunological systems are. Yet we're still discovering new immune cell types and guessing at roles...)
If it wasn't something you already had an appreciation for, you can now see that the biology state machine is beyond your wildest dreams complicated. And really, this is glossing over things. You have to take into account a metric ton of chemistry. Unlike programming, nothing ever gets abstracted away in biology.
Welcome to the defining problem of the human race--solving it, if we ever do, will likely be our grandest moment.
If I could make the bet, I'd wager we won't have a cure to cancer in 200 years.
Yeah, because a scientific study can summarized from a couple of lines from a NPR article (and even those strawman-quoted in your comment).
>This only points out that cancer has been around for a long while - which I don't think is a contentious issue anyway - not that cancer can't be eradicated
At a basic level, this points out that cancer can emerge even with the very barest forms of life/DNA -- so it's something more inherent than something we acquired after several degress of evolution.
If you couldn't tell, I don't think the article is well-written and is probably an incomplete summary of the research being done. However, I think the statement I made there is an accurate summary of what the article - if not the research - is trying to claim. I.e. it is not a strawman.