Research on the Physics of Cancer

A Global Perspective

There is something special about cancer compared to other diseases. It is a horrific disease that has defied attempts to find a reliable cure. Life spans after diagnosis have increased, but the mortality rate has remained about the same even after 40 years of extensive research. Cancer provides a major scientific challenge. Tumors evolve and spread in response to internal and external factors that involve feed-back mechanisms and non-linear behavior. In recent years, physicists have become involved in studying cancer, with the ultimate aim of finding a cure. Physicists approach a problem with unique experimental, theoretical, and computational skills and perspectives. This book will be comprised of chapters written by physicists from all over the world who perform research on cancer. They will describe their research and summarize their results.

Contents:

• Multiscale Modelling of Cancer Progression and Treatment Control: The Role of Intracellular Heterogeneities in Chemotherapy Treatment (M A J Chaplain and G G Powathil)
• Physical View on the Interactions Between Cancer Cells and the Endothelial Cell Lining During Cancer Cell Transmigration and Invasion (C T Mierke)
• Advances in Computational Radiation Biophysics for Cancer Therapy: Simulating Nano-Scale Damage by Low-Energy Electrons (Z Kuncic)
• Continuous Time Random Walk and Migration–Proliferation Dichotomy of Brain Cancer (A Iomin)
• Using Physics to Diagnose Cancer (V J James)
• From Single-Cell Dynamics to Scaling Laws in Oncology (R Chignola, M Sega, S Stella, V Vyshemirsky and E Milotti)
• Adhesion-Mediated Signalling in Cancer: Recent Advances and Mathematical Modelling (O Crociani, A Becchetti, D Fanelli and A Arcangeli)
• Common and Diverging Integrin Signals Downstream of Adhesion and Mechanical Stimuli and Their Interplay with Reactive Oxygen Species (K S Zeller and S Johansson)
• Can Mathematical Models Predict the Outcomes of Prostate Cancer Patients Undergoing Intermittent Androgen Deprivation Therapy? (R A Everett, A M Packer and Y Kuang)
• The Age Specific Incidence Anomaly Suggests that Cancers Originate During Development (J P Brody)
• Cancer — Pathological Breakdown of Coherent Energy States (J Pokorný, J Pokorný, J Kobilková, A Jandová, J Vrba and J Vrba Jr)
• Potential Mechanisms of Cancer Prevention by Weight Control (Y Jiang and W Wang)

Readership: Researchers and academics interested in biophysics and the newest findings in the field of cancer.