Conclusions
While genetic and molecular etiology of cells and the changes in the composition of surrounding extracellular environment have been explored as therapeutic targets to treat many diseases originating from epithelial tissues, including cancer104,105; how diseased conditions arise and how noise within the tissue may regulate initiation of pathology remains elusive. Understanding the underlying heterogeneity in tissues and its role in tumorigenesis will help us appreciate the organizational principles and emergent self-regulatory properties of collective living systems. Acknowledging the role of heterogeneity in tissues might prompt biologists to move away from time and population averaged studies, and lead to important discoveries. While the impact of mechanical and biochemical heterogeneity on tissue function have been studied in isolation, the exciting possibility of their interdependency being an inherent tissue property and contributing to emergent tissue functions has not been explored. Extrapolating lessons from epithelia and pondering on the relevance of noise in biological systems across multiple scales raises an intriguing question- could scale-invariant fundamental principles rooted in noise contribute to the emergent self-regulatory properties unique to life?