Recently a discussion has started to what extent physics can contribute to cancer research. Is there a specific contribution of physics or can physics just provide novel techniques?
I guess you might say it all started with "What Is Life?" a 1944 non-fiction science book about the physics of biology or biomedicine written for the lay reader by eminent physicist Erwin Schrödinger.
Dear Josef,
"Physics of Cancer" seems very interesting to me. Currently physics is contributing only in developing various techniques for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes but if phenomena related to cancer and its development can be explained with physics, it will be of great use for future technological developments in cancer treatments. I am looking forward to hear more expertise comments on this topic.
Interesting question. I recognize a few developments in my area of interest: two decades ago, I was eager to "solve" the metastasis problem in cancer research, i.e. I was looking for labs at Harvard and Stanford Universities, where I could do what I wanted to do, preferentially look into the field of "organ-specific metastasis" and I wanted to see how much the cell adhesion molecules on tumor cells can use the same mechanisms to attach to endothelial cells as leukocytes use in their migration pathways, especially in so-called lymphocyte homing. Originally I was accepted at Harvard (after 10 min of interview), but somehow ended up at Stanford - close to the lab where I could use the parallel-plate chamber to address the question of "biophysical" interactions of metastasizing tumor cells, or lymphocytes, respectively, with endothelial cells or their immobilized ligands. That was some kind of "physics" - and I found some tumor cell lines which could use almost the same mechanisms as postulated. Unfortunately, I had trouble with my an assistant professor as my P.I. of a small lab, she had trouble with many others before - so, I had to change the lab and find another "official sponsor" - I was able to get Irv Weissman, which was not bad, since he allowed me to continue my "very fascinating results" as a "major contribution to the field". But Germany did not provide me a (possible) continuation of my genuine and own and independent project... I got a Deans fellowship from Stanford, but my experimental setup was heavily sabotaged: the video camera was ruined over the XMas holidas where I could reserve the setup to document my rolling assays with chemokines (I never found out who it was).
So, back in Germany, I managed to translate my "biophysical" approach to even further analysis - using the same Receptor, VLA4/VCAM1 and SDF1 as physiologic activator via CXCR4. I managed to get an "exclusive" collaboration with a world leading biophysics lab to measure "mammalian" cell adhesion molecules at the so-called "single-molecule level", i.e. I could measure and compare the same cells I used at Stanford then in Munich. This project later got so successful, that I as the originator of the project was left without cooperation, just to promote totally unrelated people with my project to full professorhip salary. This is Germanys policie to promote just the plagiators, not the originators of even Nobel prize equivalent ideas - although I have to admit it sounded very crazy to assume to be able to measure cell adhesion forces of VLA4/VCAM1 and the immediate induction of integrin activation via a chemokine SDF1.
Intriguing question: Possibly a very important example of “out-of-box” thinking. There is, of course the vast field of diagnostic and therapeutic applications, from NMR diagnostics to radiation therapy, but few examples that would really fit into “cancer physics”. Molecular biology (and before that biochemistry) has been very dominant in basic cancer research.
But – the backbone of cancer diagnostics is still morphology. It is histology, the different structure and arrangement of cells what makes us call something cancer. The different morphology (structure, shape, arrangement) of cells is certainly a “physical” property. Can that be used? If any therapy could mimic what the pathologist does (clearly distinguish BY MORPHOLOGY) what is cancer tissue and what is not, this would be a tremendous break-through.
I am looking forward to interesting contributions.
I guess you might say it all started with "What Is Life?" a 1944 non-fiction science book about the physics of biology or biomedicine written for the lay reader by eminent physicist Erwin Schrödinger.
Dear Josef
Your question is very interesting. In fact we live in era of multidisciplinary research teams, therefore I'm pretty sure that physics can be helpful to describe cancer. From my personal point of view I think that good fields to start will be:
- swelling- or shrinkage-induced changes inside and outside of cancer cells
- modeling of molecular crowding
I think that it would be beneficial if a physicist look at this problems.
A huge and excellent review you can find here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19126758
Sorry, I should have added a very fascinating area of AFM (atomic force microscopy) to investigate tumor samples "in vivo"; there was a very good paper a year ago somewhere in Nature ...something (a Basel based group). They found some indication to tap on tumor biopsies and check the mechanical properties, which in an tumor tissue may have different signatures than in an normal tissue. Of course, I don't know (or don't remember) how they differentiate between inflamed tissue and tumor tissue, but one way may be that an intact basal membrane may yield one step, whereas dysfunctional mechanics in a tumor tissue yield many different steps.
In addition to the mentioned above subjects related to the "Physics of Cancer" field, I'd include also: 1) cell membrane potential & zeta-potential differences in cancer vs normal cells. Example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18165903; 2) Environmental/Physical conditions promoting or retarding the tumor germination and expansion, including magnetic & electric fields and electromagnetic radiation of various spectra/frequencies. Example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2872305/
Thanks, that is a very interesting problem - the physical look on cancer, where the molecular biology stands on the main place. Naturally, the «real time» therapy plus diagnostics is impossible without physical achievement, but it is important to note the importance of physical approaches to understanding the mechanisms of cancer processes, which can often be understood in the framework of known physical models.
Our group is very interested in this topic. I would like to suggest some of our works:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23275300
sorry, I forgot a link ;-)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22342954
This team is treating the cell as a dynamical system and is using quantities from our growing understanding of non-linear systems to define what it means for a singe cell to be healthy or sick.
Villorba, F; Van Piaggio, V.E (2010). "The role of mitochondria and mit-DNA in Oncogenesis". Quantum Biosystems 2 (1): 250–281.
I think that there is a lack of information/education im medical schools about physics, so the MD aren't what we could call experts in this field. If we could have these " real" experts ( cancer phyisicists) helping us in cancer matters I think we will have more contribution than we have today .
Albert Szent-Gyorgi postulated a role for electron mobility in macromolecules in cancer. Likewise, redox-mediated cellular signaling is now a very hot area in cancer research. WRT melanoma, an early apparatus for determining the electronic properties of the melanins is now on the "Smithsonian chips" list of key developments in solid state physics (he says modestly). See smithsonianchips.si.edu
I would like to draw your attention to the paper By Simon Rosenfeld: Global Consensus Theorem and Self-Organized Criticality:
Unifying Principles for Understanding Self-Organization,
Swarm Intelligence and Mechanisms of Carcinogenesis, published in Gene Regulation and System Biology. This article is an excellent review of many arguments leading to the conclusion that the cancer growth is an "intelligent" process, and that a set of cooperating cancer cells are an example of Turing machine. If we want to defeat cancer,
we must annihilate its intelligence, with a proper disruption process.
Dr Bedin: Correct about the necessity for some physicians to be trained in physics. John McGinness, who defined the electronic properties of the melanins, started out as a PhD solid-state physicist and became an MD. Denon Harman (who proposed the free radical theory of aging) is also a PHD physicist who became a physician. Likewise with Raymond Damadian, who materially contributed to MRI, resulting in a big priority fight.
I think in the field of cancer science physics rules are promoting the development of advanced technics for cancer diagnosis or somehow therapy. For instance the recent progresses in cancer imaging using PET Scan owe the physics in some ways. Using cyber knife for treating the remained part of tumor cells (metastatic cells) after primary tumor removal is another help of physics to medicine. But the term cancer physics may at first drag the attentions to the dimensions of tumor mass and what is happening in the tumor microenvironment physically? I hope this would be a new area as Josef predict.
I certainly hope so, as a former theoretical physicist turned medical student who is writing a thesis about this. Actually on the mathematical modelling of glioblastoma. Whether the approach is from biophysical properties of cells or what I hope to bring to the table, a mathematical modelling ability combined with my growing medical knowledge. The work of Paul Davies on this topic is exceptionally interesting, viewing the development of cancer as analagous to a physical state phase transition. It's a growing and exciting field which I am thrilled to have found, in the words of Mark Chaplain, eminent mathematical biologist, 'biology is the new physics and maybe one day cancer will be cured with calculus'
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3177875/
Just on my desk:
The July Issue of Physics World had a supplement on "physics of cancer".
For new explanations you can look in a journal such as Medical Hypotheses, which contains many novel theories, which certainly cannot all be correct!
William Von Witt already referred to Paul Davies, who was interviewed in Nature (Waldrop: The disruptor, Nature 474, p 20, June 2011)
In Scholar Google you can look at papers that quote
(Kirson et al Alternating electric fields arrest cell proliferaton in animal tumor models and human brain models
PNAS 104 (2007) p 10152 -
115 citations according to Google Scholar)
and
(Michor et al What does physics have to do with cancer?
Nature Reviews Cancer 11 (2011) p 657 -
31 citations according to Google Scholar),
which seems a good start.
Cancer therapy makes use of many therapies based on physics, which are regularly reviewed.
This discussion was met with great interest and I fully aprecciate it. The more specialists: physicists, chemists, mathematicians will be drawn to this work, the greater will be the chance of success. Because it often happens that scientists who have never worked in this field, but have the knowledge and competence in other areas of science and technology, can contribute new nontraditional ideas and approaches to overcome this all-world illness.
If I remember correctly, it was already in 1973 that the field of radiotherapy of tumors found some beneficial effects at least for some tumors after increasing the oxygen in those tumors. This may reduce the radioresistance of some tumor cells. Now, 40 years later, I recently attended two talks of radiotherapists about the same issue: it is shown by so many studies that this attempt is indeed beneficial, but usually not used - worldwide. I wonder if and how many other examples exist, where the publicly available treatment tries to use some standards, but may not reach the best possible (with probably not much extra-costs). I think 'optimization' of radiotherapy may fall into the field of physics and cancer. My favourite field, in which I would like to lead a pioniering lab is still AFM (atomic force microscopy), which can be not only used to measure the mechanic changes of tumor tissue vs. normal tissue, but also at the so-called "single-molecule" level the adhesive and signalling (!!!) properties of, for example, adhesion receptors.
I think to answer Josef's question, it would appear the area is still "emerging". There are to my knowledge at least THREE major physics "inspired" approaches at the AVASCULAR phase to model in vitro systems:
1) complex systems approach to tumour growth by Deisboeck, Len Sander, Athale et al. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14575649, >>Khain, ... M. Stein. 2005. A model for glioma growth. Complexity. 11:53–57.
2) cell mechanical models by David Weitz and co. >>Kaufman, ... D. A. Weitz (2005)
Glioma Expansion in Collagen I Matrices: Analyzing Collagen Concentration-Dependent Growth and Motility Patterns Biophys J. 89(1): 635–650.
3) cellular potts model >>Popławski ... Anderson A. R. A. (2009). Front instabilities and invasiveness of simulated avascular tumors. Bull. Math. Biol. 71, 1189–1227
So maybe its time to try to put a special issue together? :)
From my point of view Physics of Cancer area can be defined by the characterization of the effect of radiation and particle beams on the biological molecules and on biomimetic pseudo-cells and consequently in the development of biomimetic pseudo-cells, characterization of electronic structure of biologic molecules, adsorption studies of molecules as DNA, proteins, lipids, cholesterol, vitamins, etc…, in the characterization of conduction mechanisms in DNA, etc…
Physics can contribute both in the phenomena characterization and also provide novel techniques.
Please see our Radiation Biology and Biophysics Doctoral Training Programme (RABBIT)( http://sites.fct.unl.pt/rabbit/.) where we are boarding thematics which can included in the Physics of Cancer.
As expressed by Erwin Schrödinger’s famous quote “The working of an organism requires exact physical laws”. Physicists strive to explain nature by precise mathematical equations, which could bring a truly new perspective to cancer research and has triggered worldwide efforts to begin to understand the potential physical underpinnings of cancer. This defines a new physics of cancer. However, understanding tumor initiation, progression, and metastasis might be a bigger challenge than the detection of the Higgs boson in high-energy physics.
Cancer is not a single disease with one etiology and one cure. In addition to the enormously complex molecular networks required for the functioning of normal cells, tumors have an inherently high molecular diversity due to the stochastic nature of the mutations that cause cancer. However, one should not get the wrong impression that cancer cannot be explained via physics, which strives to describe nature by precise quantitative laws. Statistical physics – a central subfield of modern physics – has identified laws behind the stochastic events underlying thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics and has even uncovered what governs chaotic behavior in nature. The experience gained in statistical physics to reveal the laws of nature behind stochastic processes in conjunction with biophysical microfluidic experiments may help describe how highly aggressive and resistant tumor cells are generated under the selective pressure of chemotherapies, providing new diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines.
The “hallmarks of cancer”-uncontrolled proliferation, growth against the surrounding tissue matrix, and tumor cell migration- are functions that the cell has to fulfill and they may show molecular redundancy and diversity. However, from a physicist point of view, these functions require that the cancer cell has particular material properties to perform specific physical processes. In other word, the same unifying physics is needed for the intracellular functional modules to work. Thereby, the physical laws underlying solid tumor progression are rooted in soft matter physics and will help define what unifies cancer despite tumor diversity. The concept of functional modules developed in biological physics will greatly facilitate our understanding of the laws that govern cancer.
As mentioned above, the functional modules of a tumor cell may not show identical molecular architectures, but the same physical principals are essential for their functions. For instance, changes in a tumor cell’s active and passive biomechanics are required for the working of the functional modules that are involved in metastasis. During tumor progression, the proportion of cancer cells with a high compliance under small deformations increases. Moreover these softer cells show an increased contractile behavior.These cells are capable of squeezing through narrow spaces which allows them to perform optimal mesenchymal or amoeboid motion to invasively migrate through the body.
Along with optimizing cell motility and mechanics, tumors alter their microenvironment to promote metastasis because cellular processes that are critical to metastasis are strongly regulated by the physical properties of the microenvironment. These external physical cues can be geometric and mechanical. Parameters describing the microstructure of the stromal matrix surrounding a tumor, including matrix compliance, pore size, and local alignment of the fibers, can all be dynamically changed by tumor and tumor-associated cells, and in turn improve these cells’ own ability to invade the stroma more effectively. Cells leaving a tumor encounter and invade a three dimensional (3D) matrix, migrate along one-dimensional (1D) blood and lympathic vessels, and then re-invade new 3D tissues. Recent work based on these physical insights has revealed that tumor cell migration is highly sensitive to the dimension of the space available to the cell. The biophysical and biochemical regulatory mechanisms driving cell migration on conventional two dimensional (2D) surfaces are different from more physiologically-relevant 3D matrices. Indeed, 1D and 3D cell migration have more in common with one another than with 2D migration. These findings have important translational implications. Most drug-screening and testing platforms utilize regular 2D cell culture systems, which may lead to false positive and false negative results. For instance, stabilizers of microtubules such as Taxol, which are commonly used in chemotherapy, have different effects on cell shape and cell translocation along 1D blood vessels compared to their counterparts on conventional flat 2D surfaces.
Moreover, all cells in a tissue can be motile and are viscous on long time scales, behaving very much like a liquid droplet. Consequentially, tissue boundaries are comparable to fluid boundaries. Tissues can be described as a new form of fluid matter, which is a significant topic in the novel research area of “active soft matter” physics. If all cells are motile why does a tumor initially grow as a collective mass? What stabilizes the tumor boundaries? According to Malcolm Steinberg’s famous differential adhesion hypothesis, compartment boundaries between tissues are stabilized through a new type of surface tension, which is not solely determined by intercellular adhesion (through molecules such as cadherins) but also through cell contractility. Additionally, cells in tissues are very similar to soft colloids and thus have difficulties passing by each other at higher packing densities. In this context, tissues can be thought of as being in a glass-like state, which may help stabilize tumor boundaries.
Dr. Michael Höckel, a surgeon at the University of Leipzig, has significantly lowered local relapses in pelvic surgery by taking into account the physical properties that define tumor boundaries. Tumors do not spread isotropically and a microscopically tumor-free resection margin is not a robust predictor of local recurrence. It is inherent that a tumor cell will most easily invade the tissue compartment from which the cell originated. An analogy from the physical sciences is that liquid droplets mix best with other fluids if they have similar physical and chemical characteristics. Thus, because the original tissue compartment is most similar in terms of biomechanical and adhesive properties, it is energetically favorable for a tumor cell to migrate through it. It is important to note, that for the purposes of tumor resection, tissue compartments should be defined by ontogenesis and not by organ function. Cells from a single developmental compartment can give rise to multiple organs. To avoid local relapse a larger part of the original developmental compartment has to be removed.
This recent success in pelvic surgery demonstrates not only how physics influences tumor cells’ ability to transgress tissue boundaries, it also emphasizes the strong connection between oncology and developmental biology based on the concept of compartment boundaries. Fundamental functions, that underlie proliferation, invasive growth and metastasis, are also required during embryonic development. Besides the synergy with developmental biology, insights in the physics of cancer may help redefine all of medical physics. The physics and material properties that permit tumor cells to migrate through the body may not only provide more effective prognostic/diagnostic tools and therapies that can hinder metastasis, but also may inspire inverse strategies to foster nerve regeneration after injuries.
The physics of cancer is still in its infancy and it may need a decade until a translational impact will become truly visible. Nevertheless, in diagnosis, single tumor cell biomechanics provides some unparalleled advantages. Deformability of cells obtained from cytobrushes of the mouth may serve as a screening test for oral cancer. Moreover, biomechanical characterization could solve a dilemma in the staging of breast cancer. Currently, surgical treatment of breast cancer includes the removal of the sentinel lymph nodes to determine whether the primary tumor is metastatic or not. However, sentinel lymph nodes’ dissection correlates with deterioration of the patient’s health. Therefore, direct biomechanical detection of metastatic cells from the resected tumor may be an alternative to the removal of the lymph nodes.
In terms of a more long term translational perspective, cancer therapy would benefit tremendously from this new perspective of physics of cancer. The most common chemotherapy agents act by killing cells that divide rapidly, one of the main properties of most cancer cells. Newer anticancer drugs act directly against abnormal proteins in cancer cells – this is termed targeted therapy – or inhibit tumor angiogenesis. In all these cases the goal is to destroy the solid tumor. Although in most cases the primary tumor can be removed by surgery and radiation without chemotherapy, it is the remaining tumor cells as well as their ability to transgress boundaries that have to be hindered since those properties determine long-term survival. Changes in tumor cells’ physical and material properties that disrupt the functional modules required for metastasis could provide a broad spectrum of cancer treatment. . In addition, therapies that target the physical and material properties of the cancer cell do not exert much selective pressure on the cell since their goal is not to kill the cell but to criple it. This in turn would not lead to the development of resistant and more aggressive tumors which is the main issue with most current cancer therapies.
The novel discipline of physics of cancer is rooted in statistical physics or to be more specific in soft matter physics and thus is providing more than new techniques to cancer research.
It is important to understand the cancer but much more important is how to cure it. Which molecules can be given to the body in order to repair the damage? A chapter of the Physics of the Cancer should be related with characterization of healing molecules that are part of food.
As posted earlier, physical sciences in oncology has been an official NCI program for 4+ years now. Physics is providing novel measurement methods, as well as novel insights, and we're finding that physics has a much greater role in cancer behavior that was originally appreciated by "traditional" approaches. See http://physics.cancer.gov. We're organizing a short course on just this very topic: convergence of the sciences in biology and medicine. There are others out there as well. I'd be happy post links if you want.
Before the PSOC network started, mathematical modeling of cancer has been a topic for 20ish years, with a great focus on mechanistic, multiscale models that incorporate biophysics (like tissue mechanics and transport limitations). This is something I've been involved with for about 10 years now, with mathematical descriptions ranging from partial differential equations (e.g., oxygen diffusion, tumor morphology, tissue biomechanics) to agent-based models of single cells.
On the experimental side, there have been labs investigating tissue biomechanics and the impact of these on cancer cell phenotype. This is known as mechanotransduction. For example, breast cancer is more aggressive in dense / stiff stroma. Cell compression can down-regulate cycle progression and up-regulate apoptosis. etc.
So I'd say it's not only emerging, but already arrived! I'd take a look at journals like "Biophysical Journal" and "Physical Biology" to see examples, as well as Phys Rev D, PNAS, etc. for examples of it. I'd also look at talk abstracts from the PSOC network, the Society of Mathematical Biology, SIAM, etc.
There are contributions from techniques used in various areas of physics that extend the understanding of processes occurring in the biological structure that would otherwise not be seen. To an extent it could be seen as physics just providing novel techniques but since some of the techniques can only be used with ex-vivo samples and brought to specialised dedicated physics equipment that has been modified to the extent of being able to handle biological samples. Analysis of results are removed from usual biological analysis requiring new physics based analysis methods. In relation to the brief argument outlined it may be more accurate to describe a distinct area of 'Physics of Cancer'.
Physicists work on different aspects of cancer research: Experimental techniques for the diagnosis, treatment and research of cancer as well as theory and modeling for better understanding of the processes of cancer formation and metastasis. In my understanding of physics the interplay between the experimental side and the theory/modeling part is crucial. I doubt that this area is novel and emerging since people do this for years.
There was a nice review article published in nature reviews on cancer:
Nat Rev Cancer. 2011 Aug 18;11(9):657-70. doi: 10.1038/nrc3092.
The title "What does physics have to do with cancer?" says it all.
Unfortunately, in all countries I know, but especially old Europe, the university faculties are totally separated: i.e. when I pioniered the "physics of cancer" in Munich coming with my medical background and my little metastasis model from my postdoctoral time at Stanford University, to combine this with single-molecule force measurements of VLA4 (a homing integrin), the physics department was not open for an "MD only" to support a carreer in real science. Now, 10 years later, they were able to put a chemist on "my" project and promote to a position paid as full professor (but without leading responsibilities) despite a fully failed "Habilitilation" process in six years, investigating and reproducing my VLA4/VCAM1 interaction measurements with AFM, as well as my activation studies and projects with the "physiologic" SDF1 (a chemokine, which can activate VLA4 on some cells). Germany seems to be so far away from supporting real science and its pioniers. I don't know how corrupted science is in other countries.
My answer would be no. There is no novel area. The area of Medical Physics, which is dealing with the processes you are referring to, has been around for quite some time now, (some 100+ years), containing most aspects of the combination of physics and cancer research. Most therapy techniques in radiotherapy for instance have been developed by Medical Physicists. To actually make these techniques work, You have to have a detailed knowledge on cellular behaviour and radiation physics. Modelling of cell structure and radiation response is crucial. On top of that are all the imaging techiques to detect and monitor tumors before, during and after therapy. These imaging methods are usually optimized by Medical Phycisists.
Best Journals to read about current research are "Medical Physics" and "Physics in Medicine and Biology".
I believe there is an electrical component in the cancercell membrane disarray that contributes substantially to the malignant transformation.
I feel this is an issue with complex "sociology" behind it.
Josef Käs is of course completely right in that underlying physical laws control the morphology and behaviour of biological systems (including a very specific and narrow area of cancerous cells). This is why physicists are increasingly involved: as a matter of fact, there are good ideas and concepts on most biological (certainly cellular) processes - often expressed by beautiful pictures in bio-medical textbooks - but until there was a hard physics research to support / confirm them, I guess there is much scope for joint activity. But often the "sociological" problem lies in loose definitions: e.g. when we say "Physics of Cancer" - exactly what aspect of which cancer do we mean? Or even "Physics of Medicine" - that is meant to describe research of physical processes underlying the normal and malfunctioning systems, but appears to be quite distinct from "Medical Physics" - which seems to refer to the science and development of imaging and other techniques used in diagnostic and therapeutic medicine. I feel this perpetual confusion makes the cross-discipline cooperation muddled and slows its development.
The comment of Robert Eibl is most pertinent. The gulf in language and in the way of thinking / approaching problems is vast between the traditional physics (defined as the hard subject aiming at discovering fundamental laws of Nature) and medicine (or even biology). Because of this, and the physical separation, most of these very attractive and initially promising joint initiatives do not bear fruit yet.
Eugene Terentjev made two important points. Firstly, we need to be distinguish the “use of physics” e.g. in cancer diagnosis and therapy (quite a lot in widespread use here) and the “role of physics” in pathogenesis of cancer (less advances there). Secondly, for the role of physics in pathogenesis the limited communication between the biology side (including biochemistry and molecular biology) and the physicists side is indeed deplorable - even more so, as there seems to be a substantial amount of common ground. I had a look at the http://physics.cancer.gov. site that was recommended by Paul Macklin (Thank you, Paul, this is a very interesting site I knew nothing about). There, under “2013 research news” is an intriguing piece of work on changes in cellular metabolism and whether this is a consequence of cancer development – or whether the metabolic changes may precede, may actually drive the transformation (http://physics.cancer.gov/research/2013/july/po_news_b.aspx). this has much in common with the work Peter Bannasch who, many years ago, started to accumulate evidence how the changes in carbohydrate metabolism occur very early in carcinogenesis (clearly preceding the full malignant transformation) and how specific changes are closely linked to specific stages of the carcinogenic process. Interestingly, he concluded based on histopathology and biochemistry that the metabolic changes may well be the driving force of transformation (for more details see the abundance of literature at his profile here at Researchgate). I think it is significant if the same conclusion – metabolic change of carbohydrate metabolism may be an important driver of cancer – is reached independently from two different directions.
Harald! "changes in carbohydrate metabolism occur very early in carcinogenesis (clearly preceding the full malignant transformation) and how specific changes are closely linked to specific stages of the carcinogenic process. Interestingly, he concluded based on histopathology and biochemistry that the metabolic changes may well be the driving force of transformation " This very mechanism is explored in modern PET-technique (Positron Emission Tomography) to track prestage tumors. A nowadays very common modality, initially developed by Medical Physicists.
I have read many of the answers given to the question: “Is there a novel area in physics emerging that could be called “Physics of Cancer” and how would you define this area?” I have the impression that some of the answers have to do with technological advances that make it possible for physicists to study the details of the process of growth of the cancer colony, and in sense to contribute to collecting more data for biologist. However, I find very important to notice that this conversion of physicists to biology may not be really useful to fight cancer and may not contribute to the creation of the new subject of Physics of Cancer. Sui Huang, of the University of Zurich, has recently addressed this issue and, quite impressively, in spite of being an experimentalist biologist, he is encouraging physicists to address this issue through “deep thinking”.
In a 2007 paper, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 21, 57-73, Christohe Malaterre illustrated a vivacious debate between the proponents of a “reductionist” approach, based on genetic mutations and an “organicist” approach that seems to be compatible with the emerging theory of complex networks. This reminds me of the conflict between reductionist physics and a non-reductionist physics made especially harsh by the success of Renormalization Group theory.
Thus, the issue of whether a Physics of Cancer is possible generates another important question. Which is the kind of physics to adopt, the traditional reductionist physics or a new physics taking into account the revolutionary results of Renormalization Group theory which sanctioned the death of reductionism?
In my earlier answer to this important question I have mentioned the paper
“Global Consensus Theorem and Self-Organized Criticality: Unifying Principles for Understanding Self-Organization, Swarm Intelligence and Mechanisms of Carcinogenesis”, by Simon Rosenfeld, on Gene Regulation and Systems Biology. This authors writes: “ It should be clearly understood that swarm intelligence is not a metaphor; it is an actual and ubiquitous emergent property of complex systems governed by simple mechanistic rules. It is, therefore, admissible to conjecture that when developing therapeutic strategies against cancer one needs to take into consideration not only the tumor’s clonal diversity, and not only the existence of automatic negative feedback loops mitigating external disturbances, but to also recognize that the enemy is intelligent, capable of discerning the weapon applied against it, and creative enough to devise a counteroffensive.”
As an example of swarm intelligence I would like to quote a paper of my own research group, F. Vanni M. Luković , P. Grigolini “Criticality and transmission of information in a swarm of cooperative units” Phys Rev Lett. 2011;107(7):078103. This paper shows how a set of dumb but cooperative units may develop global Turing intelligence, to use the view of Simon Rosenfeld. If we adopt this theoretical perspective as the deep thinking that, according to Sui Huang, is desirable to develop to successfully fight cancer, we see that the emphasis of the research work to do to defeat cancer should move from killing the enemy to disrupt its army. If we adopt the new non-reductionist physics, discovering an efficient technique to disrupt an organized swarm of birds, if discovered, can be used to disrupt a set of cooperating cancer cells.
It is worth looking on a special issue in AIP Advances journal "Physics of Cancer": http://aipadvances.aip.org/about/physics_of_cancer
Our Bioelectrodynamics research team also contributed http://aipadvances.aip.org/resource/1/aaidbi/v2/i1/p011207_s1
Paolo, I don´t see anything in your answer contradicting my claim that Physics of Cancer can be regarded as a part of Medical Physics research. Admittedly, looking only at the current clinical applications, the focus is on radiotherapy and imaging techniques, but a survey on the multitude of interdisciplinary research going on, will show that "Physics of Cancer" fits in nicely among all the myriads of approaches aimed to combat cancer utilising Physics as a tool. I know that plenty of Medical Physics research is performed by Physicists, Engineers etc without formal training as a clinical Medical Physicist (as defined by IAEA, for instance). It is the aim: combating cancer, and the means: physics as a tool, that define the vast area of Medical Physics. And these hallmarks don´t differ from "physics of cancer" I believe?
I think physics is contributing much more than just techniques. Its a Focus Topic at the next APS meeting. Here's a link to the description:
http://www.aps.org/meetings/march/scientific/focus.cfm#04114
Well, there is one field of Physics called "Medical Physics." Several institutions, including mine (University of Wisconsin Madison). have a department in that field. While Medical Physics covers many topics (diagnostic, health physics...). a big "sub-field" of Medical Physics is Therapy and includes many services used in Oncology and cancer treatment: dose calculation, delivery optimization, machine calibration...
I hope this helps.
There is nothing physicists don't think or talk about, including cancer. However, "physics of cancer" has not become a field. It seems to me so far there has been no new physics that is unique to cancer. In general, physical laws govern biology through biochemistry. I am not talking about biomedical instrumentation.
The physics of cancer would be the mesoscale physics of soft condensed matter. For physics, biomaterials acting in cancer are deformable by interactions, external stresses, electric fields, and thermal fluctuations. A characteristic of such materials is the development of mesoscale structures at larger than atomic and molecular scales and smaller than cells and tissues. This mesoscale scale, between nanometers of molecules and micrometers of cells, determines the physical and chemical properties of assemblies involved in many incompletely understood biological processes including DNA replication, cell division and cancer.
Presently the idea of physis of cancer is addressed through Radiological Physics. If we can contrbute to the growth and development of cells, mutation etc. from the logic of physics it would be nice. What biology explains is the observed process. the basic biochemistry and physics is the things that govern the process. So we have a definite scope.
There's a lot of work being done on multiscale modelling of cancer. Books, reviews and special issues on the topic exist, but at least to my knowledge this area of research is still highly interdisciplinary and most of the articles are published either in modelling or medical journals.
I don't see any immediate reason why physical cancer modelling couldn't develop into a field in itself, it seems to be a reasonable and promising approach to get some answers to the original and hard-to-solve questions involved.
As of now, I could see Medical Physics as one of the closest neighbors to the proposed "physics of cancer". Medical Physics was once a very promising field of research as it directly helped translating basic science into advanced technology to detect or cure cancer. However, the present condition of this field is not so good. I don't see anymore fundamental research or basic science-driven research is happening in this field right now. Now whatever happens in this field is just incremental technological improvements only. Not many people working or researching in this field ask fundamental scientific questions. Unless this state changes, i don't see Medical Physics is going to retain its charm in the next decade.
So in my view, if people start asking more of fundamental questions in the field of Medical Physics, then, in future, we can branch out a separate field out of Medical or biophysics, which can be called as "physics of cancer". Let us hope for it to happen!
I think the "cancer" follows the same law of normal physics and no one found something which is unusual.
I don't mean to start a debate on the future of Medical Physics but I would like to complete Vaitheeswaran Ranganathan's comment.
Medical Physics is still a very promising field but it cannot be viewed solely via the scope of research. It is, in fact, as much of a clinical field as it is an academic / research oriented field. Actually, there is a high demand of Medical Physicists in hospitals even more so that in many cases it surpasses the number of candidates. This side of Medical Physics will probably retain its charm for the next decade.
As for research, by definition Medical Physics is a multi-disciplinary field and most of its current research (mine included) falls under the umbrella of different collaborations between people from fields such as: Radiology, Biomedical Engineering, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Public Health, Physics, Statistics...
By that token, Medical Physics is playing a key role towards answering fundamental questions in diverse field. One of them, maybe the most important for the future of science, being how to train the next generation of scientists to think out of the box by being the leaders in cross-disciplinary research.
Medical physics is a rapidly-developing field, and a number of people ARE asking fundamental questions, both with regard to imaging and with regard to the treatment of patients. Cross-disciplinary research is fundamental to advancement in my opinion.
A great example is thermoacoustic imaging for proton therapy, which combines a number of ideas into a completely new method of treating patients:
http://www.aapm.org/meetings/2013AM/PRAbs.asp?mid=77&aid=22359
"Cancer of Physics" is like crossing the river of Medical Physics to get some water..
Adding "Cancer" to Physics does no more than make it "attractive" - e.g. marketing. The principles remain the same!
People in biophotonics have been looking at cancer for years. I doubt there is going to be a "Cancer Physics" anytime soon since all there is to studying cancer through physics is application of novel non-invasive detection/diagnostic techniques to complement histopathology. The forward modelling through statistical mechanics comes with detection part.
Interesting thread. I think that the term "Physics of Cancer" is probably not apt in that it could give the impression that physics alone is able provide the answers to understanding what cancer is and how to treat it.
To my mind there are three key questions that must revolve around anything to do with cancer :
(a) What is cancer? Where does it come from, how does it operate - there's a lot of uncertainty about the former, less so about the latter the understanding of which has thus far required the combined might of multidisciplinary engagement. In my opinion, this is unlikely to change and with it little chance that the answers are suddenly going to come from physics alone
(b) How can cancer be treated? Applied physics comes into its own here and is pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Radiotherapy, Nuclear medicine, kV, MV imaging, Lasers, etc. All this requires knowledge of how particles interact with one another and with organic matter. That there is still a lot to be learned here - witness the recent excitement about the discovery of the Higgs, is encouraging and is in large measure responsible for propelling medical physics to the scientific forefront today. Medical physics still has a lot of mileage left I would say.
(c) What is matter? This is pretty much synonymous with asking: what is life? Don't know whether or when it will be possible to answer this arcane question fully. But when we do, we would have solved the conundrum of cancer.
So I would propose that rather that instead of the term “Physics of Cancer” something like “Cancer Dynamics” might be more appropriate.
To me the earlier debates (for example between Paolo and Jan L) appear similar to strange debates we have in the community here in response to the question "what is the difference between biophysics and physical biology?"
Indeed clear as the benefits of using concepts of radiation and nano-materials in detecting and curing cancer given the clinical immediacy of it, it is also important to see that a better "conceptual" understanding (physical biology of cancer?) of the processes. These could be they network dynamics, graph theoretical, mechanical, porous material/soft-matter issues- they are vital to advancing from the stage of the molecular biologists have won in terms of molecular-inventories (akin to collecting spectra). We know ATLEAST BY NOW that cancer is not a one-hit-wonder (with rare exceptions).
Such "complex systems" of interconnected proteins, genes, metabolites and cells need something of a theory. And as a biologist transitioning into "physical biology" over a period of a decade, I think its hard work. But its rewards may be plenty. Those who ask "why do we need a theory", only need to consider the benefits that have come from all the theoretical advances in classical and statistical mechanics.
At any rate the debate and creative tension will go on, but I believe there is a distinct difference between Medical Physics of Cancer and Physics of Cancer (as Experimental biophysics is different from Physical Biology).
But as another commentator pointed out, its also a bit of "sociology".
See. http://physicsandcancer.org . This group has now moved to the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics at Rice University, Houston,TX . See http://ctbp.rice.edu ; we are now focused on the physics of cancer, from a number of different perspectives.
Josef
great question. Some of us believe that physics can contribute to seminal work toward understanding and managing cancer. I would refer you to the web site of the Physical Sciences in Oncology for work funded by the National Cancer Institute here in the US:
http://physics.cancer.gov/
You might also investigate the work of the researchers within the Americal Physical Society who are memebrs of the Division of Biological Physics:
http://www.aps.org/units/dbp/index.cfm
While I am a member and strong supporter of medical physics i keep reminding the US members that the AAPM stands for "Physicists in Medicine" not "Medical Physics" AAMP
RNAi technology helps us understand the relative importance of a gene and its protein product. Driver mutations of key genes help us understand why a cancer cell turns on/ off certain pathways. But, the sheer complexity of cell signalling networks, and their cross-talk is overwhelming. How is one to know what network is important to a cancer cell at any given time? If Physics can help us biologists with this-it would be great !The genotype-phenotype link is also v. complex. Cancer cell phenotype is controlled by non-genetic factors (like metabolic patterns or influence of the exracellular matrix). So, we need physicists to develop principles and models which can input all these variables in a weighted manner and predict what the cancer cell is likely to do/not do !
"Physics of Cancer" describes a very broad area of research which includes genetics, proliferation, tumor growth, angiogenesis, but also importantly cell motility. For the cancer cell to metastasize it must have the capability to squeeze itself to tissue toward a vessel. In contrast to cancer research in the medical community, physics injects a more quantitative and analytical way to understand any of the above-mentioned processes. Cell motility, for example is related to the growth dynamics of actin filament which can be modeled. Cellular automata models for example have been put forward for the growth of a tumor consisting of different types of cells organized in a distinct spatiotemporal way.
Of course, it is not only physics and modeling. Most research has a biological/medical experimental components. It is not that physicists decided that they are going to cure cancer, it is a collaborative research with physicists, biologists and medical researchers involved.
If you are interested "Physical biology" and "AIP Advances" have published several special volumes. "Physical Biology" seems most dedicated to this emerging field.
I believe there is an emergent "quantum biology" field you should look into.
You may like this paper may: The Electrical Properties of Cancer Cells
Hi first of all the topic physics of cancer is not proper.physics is concerned with treatment of cancer like radiation therapy,tomography etc.so topic of discussion should be 'Role of physics in treatment of cancer'.
I think it's completely unnecessary to introduce this category. The bottom line is that cancer is formed by "renegade" cells; to understand it, we need to understand physics behind the cell's structure, organization and functioning. There are as many different kind of cancers as kinds of non-cancerous tissue - are we going to study different physics for each of them?
There is also the physics of metastatic cell migration and association with the matrix as well as the physics of transport/solute and fluid flux to and from metastatic cells and tumors...
Yes, physics underlies most (if not all) of the cells' processes. Dr. Radmilla and Dr. Virgina have the perspective of Biophysicists. But Biologists/Biochemists like myself are not sufficiently trained in Biophysics and statistics! Hence, these discussions arise. The latest Cell Biology or Biochemistry textbooks are mainly descriptive and biophysical concepts are only taught for Bioenergetics. Hope this helps!
I was a theoretical physicist, now finishing my medical degree. My research currently is on the mathematical modelling of glioblastomas so i have been reading a lot about this. Also thinking about the clinical utility of the fascinating perspectives people like Paul Davies have come up with as I see cancers get resected on my surgical rotation. We have mathematical biology and systems biology which are really 'cancer physics' of you want to call it that in the way they approach modelling cancer. As I was a physicist, I am wont to use PDEs in my modelling and think of things like fluid flow and mechanical forces. It certainly colours the way i think about things. The models we make are only as good as the understanding of the biology, which must guide the mathematics, not vice versa, to paraphrase JD Murray. Maybe it will give us some new insights into currently incurable cancers like the glioblastomas i look at, but presently it is just a title for a field which doesn't really have a clear idea of what it is supposed to be doing in my opinion.
Good question to come up with..........I do not know whether this terminologies can be used in which forms but yes you can not avoid Physics and even Maths from Cancer Research because Maths of cancer was also published much earlier.....................
Any way The Important topic i would like to Add is Thermodynamics............ as Cell's energy system which is defining it healthy or sick is the most important whether it comes through Biochemical cycles or through modifications or evolution of genes. We need to make Cancer Interdisciplinary area of research and should not be limited to the use of Physics for the diagnostic purposes...........We should keep in mind that from Cell lines in culture to healthy humans all follow Thermodynamic pattern to facilitate their life cycle.................................Many more to be added further......................
Instead of asking whether we need the "physics", the "biophysics", or maybe the "chemistry", "biochemistry" or "quantum mechanics" of cancer to make progress in understanding cancer and find ways to help people who suffer from it, I think, it is more important to realize that these boundaries of scientific fields, i.e. biology, chemistry, medicine, physics, etc. are really artificial and are actually not done by nature. "Cancer" can be seen as a class of "disease" or else as a "naturally occurring mutation" of cells. Whether you look at it as a disease (like in medicine which uses the language of biology and biochemistry) or as an interesting "system" to be studied in isolation, (e.g like a single atom in a Pauli trap) with the language and methods of mathematics (the theoretical physicists' point of view), I think would gradually become irrelevant, if researchers from different fields had a stronger inclination to really work together and share their knowledge, trying to find new approaches or paradigms. Although it is tempting (I am a physicist myself) I wouldn't go as far and speak of a new emerging field of "physics of cancer" because I think, unfortunately, this is too restricting. To really fully appreciate different aspects of cancer you just need the different experimental techniques, you need wet-lab approaches the people working at the work bench, cell-culturing, you need the biochemistry, an understanding of biochemical path ways, patient studies, etc., which cannot all be subsumed under the term "physics of cancer". Unfortunately we don't know a "Hamiltonian of Life", so we cannot write down a fundamental equation describing cancer or life or biology as such, and then go ahead and solve the equation under certain constraints. Biology probably has become a "real science" since the discovery of DNA by Watson and Crick, because since then we understand the really unifying atomic aspects of life, i.e. biochemistry, genetics, etc., almost like some "basic laws", and I think this is what made biology really a multidisciplinary area of research and why chemists and physicists, computer scientists and mathematicians can actually contribute to this field as well. I think what we really need is a joint effort of people from all the different areas of research (physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, computer science and so on) that deal with cancer, trying to solve well-posed problems together, trying to find possible new approaches by combining their experimental and theoretical efforts. Unfortunately, so far, the research is really almost completely separated, with each expert usually publishing only in his or her very specialised journals in their respective technical language. So, maybe new multidisciplinary journals and/or conferences, trying to bring together cancer researchers from different research areas (according to the artificial distinctions of fields made by humans) might gradually change this situation. I also think that it would be important at the universities all around the world to establish research and student programs that have a stronger interdisciplinary aspect, which, I know of course, is already going on, but probably not so much in "cancer research".
Instead of speaking of the "physics of cancer" I would prefer to still speak of "cancer research" but meant as a multidisciplinary field where strict boundaries between "methods of" physics, cell biology, medicine, etc. are gradually becoming less and less important.
Ah, the pendulum may swing with discussion such as these. I used to think in disciplinary silos until I did my PhD work in Biophysics at UVA - we were distributed throughout the university and throughout disciplines - I worked on diffusion boundary layers and solving an old chestnut as to why hemoglobin is contained within a membrane - another colleague was looking at asymmetric hydrocarbons in space as indicative of life; another was doing X-ray crystalography and working on the EF hand structures and the fourth was using Monte Carlo statistical methods to solve a problem of enzyme kinetics. I learned that what was important was the question and that our job was to bring the correct tools to the table to address the question. The next point was learning to speak with each other even though we had differing perspective, backgrounds and vocabularies. So I think the title "Biophysics of Cancer" is a marketing device; the problems are real and the need to be truly interdisciplinary remains. We have been reductionists these past few decades - now it is time to integrate and appreciate the interaction of the systems.
Wait a minute! Reductionism does not mean "thinking in disciplinary silos" to reductionist. Assigning untenable arguments to others, and then refuting the argument that nobody seriously maintains is a debate trick to score cheap points, not a serious way to advance ones understanding of complex issues. Reductionism to a reductionist would mean something like stripping off the superfluous and reducing a problem to its minimal core components in order to productively address it. I.e. It is a sofisticated philosophical device, not a simple minded one.
Christer, from what I can make out from Virginia's comment, I don't think that is what he was trying to say. I do think he raises an important point though and that is that essentially there is no such thing as a right or wrong answer, only the right question! And the right question is all about context, which itself can be non-trivial to distill due to interference from differing perspectives of the varied professional, cultural and possibly socio-economic backgrounds of participants. Forums such as this are great at helping to clarify context. Incidentally I do think that reductionism as you define it should indeed be applied to the question that started this thread, i.e. go back to the beginning, ask the right questions (whatever they may be) and build from there. What we are realy talking about is how to understand the dynamics of cancer and in so doing be able to characterise its behaviour, predict its next move, and come up with ways to mitigate this. No matter which we we cut it, this will still require multidiciplinary effort from physicists, biologists, chemists, and a host of other medical and non-medical displines.This is why I think the phrase "Physics of Cancer" is not necessary. The question of how and why cancer comes into being in the first place is a question for a separate thread I think. Cheers.
Apropos reductionism (which we see systematically propounded in popular science, especially concerning cosmology and particle physics), I submit it does not mean quite "serious and systematic approach" for most of us. It is a philosophical view about how the world is made, actually a metaphysical position, and in practice more in the theory-of-everything department, kind-of preposterous and not very useful in actual fact.
I suppose "non-medical" cancer research/modeling should do well to heed the suggestions by PW Anderson (and GFR Ellis) about emergent properties. Philosophically less unsatisfactory, and more useful (look at condensed matter physics for examples).
Refs:
P. W. Anderson, Science 177 (1972), 393; More and different (World Scientific, 2011);
GFR Ellis, Nature 435, 743 (2005); Physics Today, July 2005, p.49.
You are probably aware of the development of new techniques of proton or ion therapy for cancer treatment right? I recently attended a seminar of Dr. Marco Durante from the Darmstadt University
http://www.fkp.tu-darmstadt.de/groups/ag_durante/dur/index.en.jsp
about the effects of beam therapy on the destruction of cancerous cells.
I think the real inertia in the transfer of "hard science"
to medicine stems not from a lack of
inter-disciplinary collaboration amongst scientists
(biochemists, physicists, mathematicians), but rather
the breakdown of the application of science to the
practice of medicine that comes at the interface between
the scientist and the physician.
Physicians are trained to memorize ... they are not
trained to think like scientists --- that is why, if you look
at the history of medicine, it has taken ridiculous
amounts of time for certain well known scientific
principles to become "standard of care" in medicine.
(something as simple as washing of hands prior to
surgery).
For hard science to impact medicine in a more timely
manner, clinicians will have to be trained in a completely
different way. And the influence of the economics of clinical
practice will have to be drastically reduced.
I seem to recall a few years ago that someone was attempting to model mitochondria.
Modelling the chemical processes didn't work and neither did modelling the electrical properties, but once the physical properties were modelled (size, shape, proximity of elements) the whole thing worked.
It just goes to show that when we look at things holistically (biology + chemistry + physics + ...) we get a much better understanding of how the world works.
Lee Baker
CEO Chi-Squared Innovations
www.chi2innovations.com
Yes, see e.g. http://physicsandcancer.org/, or at KITP: http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/cancer12/rss.xml. A major initiative has been started in the US recently.
You may also want to visit the site: http://physics.cancer.gov/
http://physics.cancer.gov/
Perhaps 'Biophysics' would suffice. 'Physics of Cancer' has been going on for a couple of decades now. First though, it is important to understand the biology. The benefit of the physics dimension includes a mathematical modeling of the phenomenon of interest, and the better guided use of electricity and wave --2 things that I am convinced will be prominent in the CURE of forms of cancer.
Based on similar question "Modeling of Physics of cancer" by me available in Researchgate Q&A, a set of rate equations can be written to determine the stage of cell proliferation in domains of space, time and energy. This is a balance of population of unhealthy cells generated by cancer and number of cells demolished by uptake of chemo-drugs. If it is positive, the proliferation takes place leading to metastasis. While it is equal to zero ,then a steady state condition happens indicating that the disease is under control, otherwise this term is positive emphasizing the treatment is successful.
Furthermore, the energy consumption would be different in the normal and unhealthy cells, hence the enegy balance and corresponding temperature profile contribute in cancer modeling. Finally, employing the social Affairs- models which come from sociology concepts, may be useful to simulate the instantanous population of cancerous cell colonies. Despite physical models rely on certain physics laws, sociology based populations utilize statistical methods, random variables and Monte Carlo Simulation .
It could be viewed as the energetics of cancer biology that allow continued growth and expansion. There are some good papers out there studying the metabolomics of cancer cells, and these often rely on mathematics is similar to the modeling of physical systems (i.e. differential equations, etc).
Cancer biology obeys the same rules of physics i.e, conservation of energy and mass. Therefore, similar to a physical system may be explained by a set of differential equations.
Thats classic physicists thinking. The world is a set of differential equations, preferably linear one's so that they can be solved. Processes in living systems are so complex that just a handful of conservation laws will not provide any insights. Let's remember, a cell is an open system, far from thermal equilibrium (unless its dead!) and has many, many different proteins that interact with each other and regulate each other, can make the cell move, divide, etc...
A system of differential equations? Really?
Cancer is a class of complex biological process. Experimental and theoretical methods of Physics can be useful in many regards, e.g. in the development of novel diagnosis tools, therapy etc. When one thinks to therapy , accelerators are the first thing coming in mind, but there are also new tools e.g. drug "nanovectors" in the realm of what is tentatively called nanomedicine.
The phrasing "Physics of cancer" can be impressive for politicians but is poorly scientifically founded
I have worked as Medical Physics Lecturer in Nuclear Medicine Department for 19 years at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi. As far as I know Medical Physics specialty involves diagnostic methods and cancer treament. Physicists deal with treatment planning in cancer patients whereas doctors deal with clinical aspects.
Please check physicsworld.com. The issue of Volume 26 #7 July 2013 of Physics World is about the Physics of Cancer: New Tools and Fresh Perspectives. The issue contains four articles on the physics of cancer.
Medical Physics of Radiotherapy deals exclusively on equipment and treatment planning for cancer cure as I replied earlier. Probably some one coined a new word for it. I appreciate Ivan Culaba for highlighting the new developments.
You may also consult the book Biomedical Optical Imaging edited by James Fujimoto and Daniel L. Farkas. Oxford University Press 2009 ISBN 978-0-19-515044-5 on the cancer detection using optics, in particular, fluorescence spectroscopy. Chapters 10 and 11 contains fluorescence imaging in medical diagnostics. I hope this information helps.
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