Ever increasing amounts of DNA sequence-based “cancer mutation” data have added much to our understanding of the human genome over the past decade. However, whereas detailed sequencing has helped delineate new pathways and has led to some progress in specific cancer types, this has not delivered a real breakthrough in our understanding of cancer. We believe it is time to re-assess some of the scientific concepts that underpin current mainstream cancer research, such as the “Somatic Mutation Theory” of cancer in light of solid experimental data and alternative theoretical concepts that have accumulated over several decades in different areas of cell and cancer biology as well as big data analysis methodologies. The workshop started the process of integrating these insights into a new framework of “a revised theory of cancer.”