Jump to Content
View Cart
Special Topic on Physics of Cancer
Edited by:
Robert H. Austin, Princeton University, NJ
Bernard S. Gerstman, Florida International University, Fla.
The special section aims to advance, from a physics perspective, fundamental understanding of the complex systems of tumors and their behavior. The goal is to enable new concepts and new ways of viewing cancer to flow from the physical and mathematical sciences to the cancer research community.
This AIP Advances special topical section includes invited papers on three main themes of tumor heterogeneity—physical, genomic and biological network—from a workshop held in June 2011 at Princeton Physical Sciences Oncology Center, one of twelve such centers funded by the NIH's National Cancer Institute.
Read the Preface | More research from this special topical section
Research Highlights
Physics of cancer propagation: A game theory perspective
Chris Cleveland, David Liao, and Robert Austin
Invoking cancer's likeness to a community of bacteria, the authors examine, from a game theory perspective, the dynamics of cooperators and cheater cells under metabolic stress conditions and high spatial heterogeneity. The present modeling reveals novel cooperative patterns and stress gradient responses that counterpart models fall short of and provides insights into modifying conventional models to account for otherwise unanticipated dynamics.
Diversity of dynamics and morphologies of invasive solid tumors
Yang Jiao and Salvatore Torquato
A generalized formulation of a recently developed cellular automaton (CA) model is presented that takes into account the deformation of the extracellular matrix (ECM) surrounding an invasive or noninvasive tumor and the local geometry of the tumor-host interface. The authors find that while noninvasive tumors growing in "soft" homogeneous microenvironments develop almost isotropic shapes, both high pressure and host heterogeneity can strongly enhance malignant behavior, leading to finger-like protrusions of the tumor surface.
An experimental and theoretical approach to the study of the photoacoustic signal produced by cancer cells
Rafael Pérez Solano, Francisco I. Ramirez-Perez, Jorge A. Castorena-Gonzalez, Edgar Alvarado Anell, Gerardo Gutiérrez-Juárez, and Luis Polo-Parada
Using a common photoacoustic (PA) detector, the authors evaluated the absorption properties of a most commonly used cell line. It is found that the signal amplitude depends on the number of irradiated cells which may be related to the amount of melanin present. The authors further determine a formula for the time-domain photoacoustic wave equation for a monolayer of cells in a non-viscous fluid on the thermoelastic regime. The theoretical results showed that the amplitude and profile of the photoacoustic signal generated by the cell monolayer depended upon the number and distribution of the cells and the location of the point of detection.
Implications of quantum metabolism and natural selection for the origin of cancer cells and tumor progression
Paul Davies, Lloyd A. Demetrius, and Jack A. Tuszynski
Sporadic forms of cancer are age-related metabolic diseases. Integrating (i) Quantum Metabolism, an analytic theory of energy transduction in cells and (ii) entropic selection principle, a general rule of cellular competition for energy sources, the authors present an analytical framework for a quantitative analysis of the origin and proliferation of the disease.
A clinical data validated mathematical model of prostate cancer growth under intermittent androgen suppression therapy
Travis Portz, Yang Kuang, and John D. Nagy
Androgen suppression is a common hormone therapy for prostate cancer but adversely affects patient life style and the decease most often recurs. In a clinical study, aided with mathematical modeling, of seven male patients with stage C and stage D prostate cancer, intermittent androgen suppression alleviated most unwanted side effects and postponed the development of resistance to treatment.
Integrated intravital microscopy and mathematical modeling to optimize nanotherapeutics delivery to tumors
Anne L. van de Ven, Min Wu, John Lowengrub, Steven R. McDougall, Mark A. J. Chaplain, Vittorio Cristini, Mauro Ferrari, and Hermann B. Frieboes
Post chemotherapy cancer patients develop resistance to drugs. By developing computer simulations of tumors with realistic-looking blood vessels, the authors studied the drug doxorubicin delivered to tumors with nanoparticles made of porous silicon. They conclude that simply delivering more nanoparticles or more drug per particle in a single injection is not necessarily efficient but drug release in steady, regular bursts over a prolonged period of time in some cases is more optimal.
This Publication
Scitation
Google Scholar
PubMed