Work

Physics of Cancer: The Impact of Heterogeneity

Year: 2011

Type: review

Abstract: It is a common mistake to view cancer as a single disease with a single possible cure which we have just not found yet. In reality cancer takes on many forms that share a common symptom: uncontrolled cell growth and successful invasion of cancer colonies to remote regions of the body. The key reason why we may never be able to defeat cancer may lie in the extreme heterogeneity of the population of the cells in a tumor: there is no one magic bullet. We will try in this review to show how the developing field of the physics of biological heterogeneity can help us understand and quantify the emergent heterogeneity that makes cancer such a fundamental puzzle.

Source: Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics

DOI: 10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-020911-125109

Authors: Qiucen Zhang, Robert H. Austin

Institutions: Princeton University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Language: English

Topic: Mathematical Biology Tumor Growth

Subfield: Modeling and Simulation

Field: Mathematics

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: National Science Foundation, National Cancer Institute

OpenAlex ID: W2138481912

FWCI: 0.421

Cites: 53

Cited by: 30

Related to: 10