Summary : On December 23, 1971, US President Richard Nixon signed the war on cancer. A decade earlier John Kennedy had promised to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, a dramatic and ambitious goal that was duly accomplished. Inspired by the success of his nemesis, Nixon declared that cancer would be history by the end of the 1970s. Four decades and several hundred billion dollars later, cancer mortality remains unabated. Why the failure? This colloquium will deal with cancer not as a disease but as a fascinating biological phenomenon of which we know precious little, focusing on how the mainstream view of cancer as a genetic disorder is being challenged by Otto Warburg, who argues from his grave that metabolism is first.