Edited by Francesco Pezzella, Mahvash Tavassoli, and David J. Kerr
Abstract
The study of the biology of tumours has grown to become markedly interdisciplinary, involving chemists, statisticians, epidemiologists, mathematicians, bioinformaticians, and computer scientists alongside medical scientists. Oxford Textbook of Cancer Biology brings together the developments from different branches of research into one volume. Structured in seven sections, the book starts with a review of the development and biology of multicellular organisms, how they maintain a healthy homeostasis in an individual, and a description of the molecular basis of cancer development. The book then illustrates how, once cells become neoplastic, their signalling network is altered and pathological behaviour follows. Changes that cancer cells can induce in nearby normal tissue are explored, and the new relationship established between them and the stroma is explicated. Finally, the authors illustrate the contribution provided by high throughput techniques to map cancer at different levels, from genomic sequencing to cellular metabolic functions, and how information technology with its vast amounts of data are integrated with traditional cell biology to provide a global view of the disease. The book concludes by summarizing what we know to date about cancer, and in what direction our understanding of cancer is moving.