Similar to the rate equations for laser transition, the difference of production rate of unhealthy cells( by an unknown reason- may by a genetic disorder) and the rate of unhealthy cells removal (by immunity system) is equal to the rate of remaining malignant cells. The latter may be negative (treatment) , zero (steady state- control of disease ) or positive ( finally metastasis - likelihood of cancer progress to other organs).

http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/Personal/dabbott/publications/JTB_spencer2004.pdf

Your may like this ......"Electrical properties of cancer cell"

http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v11/n7/abs/nrc3080.html

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/adva/2/1/10.1063/1.3699043

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapm/journal/medphys/8/3/10.1118/1.594868

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-020911-125109

http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tiIYVyHdI1gC&oi=fnd&pg=PA19&dq=cancer+%22p+c+w+davies%22&ots=_oO29bpvqv&sig=cefO2dSz77yBiajiytVw0_aihGQ#v=onepage&q=cancer%20%22p%20c%20w%20davies%22&f=false

http://iopscience.iop.org/1478-3975/8/1/015001

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610711000393

Hello Derek

thank you very much for the really interesting bibliography!

Annamaria

There are ongoing attempts to model the mechanical properties of cancer cells and how these affect their biology and behavior. The group led by Dr. MIna Bissell in California has pioneered this type of research and is extremely productive. There are several published mathematical models of cancer growth, but many of them fail to take into account important factors. Not all cancer cells proliferate at the same rate. Some are quiescent. Some die spontaneously. The cancer microenvironment is heterogeneous in terms of access to blood supply, oxygen and nutrients, resulting in uneven growth. The population of cancer cells itself is heterogeneous, and often include cells with stem-like characteristics that are phenotypically different from the bulk of the other cells. Finally, the composition of the micro-environment in terms of immune cells, cytokines etc. is also heterogeneous and is influenced by systemic factors (such nutritional state, chronic inflammation, obesity etc.). A comprehensive mathematical model of cancer has not been developed to my knowledge. It would have to take into account the cancer cells themselves, the microenvironment and systemic factors, and their reciprocal interactions.

i have been interested in this topic for years, but unfortunately, my skills in physics/mathematics are subpar =( ive a small piece of work in Biosystems. If you are interested, please have a look and leave a comment!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303264711002036

I believe that a set of rate equations with a number of terms for dominant production and decay rates look like to be an approach to model cancer. In fact, for any type of cancer, the rate equations should be rewritten regarding the net proliferation rate.

According to spatially hetrogeneous nature of cancer, the tissue environment may be partitioned with proper boundary conditions at interfaces where a set of governing rate equations explain the dynamics of cancer to estimate popuation of unhealthy cells in each partition. The adjacent partitions may reciprocally interact by themselves. Each partition may include micro partitions(cancer cells).

The success of this model mainly relies on the accuracy of the coefficients. This can be improved by interactive techniques and statistical methods based on follow-up of many patients. The coefficients certainly alter in different micro- environments. Difficult and interesting project which needs a joint collaboration of physicists,mathematicians and physicians!

http://physics.cancer.gov/centers/

Dear Professors/Colleagues,

I do believe that the main difficulty of having any successful physical model for cancer lies in the very definition of "cancer" itself. These days physicians are struggling to define cancer, as the more general term of a "tumor" simply has too large a spectrum in terms of growth rate, invasiveness, metastasis, and - even within these groups there is great heterogeneity in terms of patient outcome.

If I may ask, what would a "physical" definition of cancer be? Is it simply a matter of altered proliferation rate? If so, are there existing models for normal cellular proliferation that we can borrow ideas from? We seem to have a "biological" definition in Weinberg's Hallmarks of Cancer, but there are no unique physical properties amongst these hallmarks! How about a project on the Physical Hallmarks of Cancer?

I think we should solve an important issue before this discussion. Ia Cancer a genetic or a metabolic disease? Since our approach to cancer may determine this discussion.

The model that most closely approximates the "physics of cancer" is "random variation." In most cancers, ongoing genetic changes make accurate targeting very difficult. For treatment I recommend Fractal Chemotherapy - a description of which is attached.

John Gamel, MD

It is a compelling question. However, it is predicated on some definitions which require clarification, as mentioned by the other posters.

Currently, there is an school of thought which purports that cancer-like behavior of cells may be actually induced by a much smaller subset of cancer stems cells, by manipulation of the 'micro-environment' , as alluded to by Dr Mieles earlier in this discussion.

This in of itself shakes any preconceptions one may hold about cancer in general. Specifically, that cancer is a more generalized disorder rather than simply the case of rogue cancer cells disseminating in the body. The latter, classical view may have fitted into a random variation pattern, as suggested by Dr Gamel above. Not so sure about the 'micro-environment' model for cancer.

Needless to say, this theory has its detractors.

Even aside from the above, under the older, 'classical' model, we are yet to comprehensively understand processes which are key to carcinotgenesis, such as apoptosis, autophagy and immuno-surveliance. A grand unified mathematical model for cancer may require a degree of certitude regarding the underlying variables.

I am sure models have been developed, but they would not be of much utility if they cannot be tested.

Testing it would be a problem, at least in vivo. For starters, if we had technology to non-invasively identify, tag and track cancer cell in real-time, cancer would not have been the major issue that it is. Not to mention the issues of surrounding ethical approval.

That all being said, electric cell impedance sensing is one way of measuring cell growth in real time, which allows for wounding and subsequent measurement of migration rates. However, extrapolation of ECIS data from cultured cell lines is difficult, as it obviously cannot account for what we now know to be very heterogeneous cell population.

Maybe in a couple of decades...

The above reply was written under the assumption that a model of the 'physics of cancer' referred to a mathematical model predicting the movement of cancer cells in an in vivo model.

I apologize if the OP had something else in mind.

@Derek Abbot

Appreciate your answer...

Dear Colleagues,

I believe that the question of the physics of cancer must be preceded by the question of the physical cause of cancer, if it exists in principle. If the question of the physical cause of cancer does not make sense, then the question about the physics of cancer does not make sense. If, however, the question of the physical cause of cancer makes sense, then first of all it is necessary to find this cause. Seems to me that I know in what is the physical cause of cancer. Question of the physical cause of cancer is closely related to that of the physical cause of functioning of our brain. Question of the physical reason of functioning of our brain is closely related to that of the physical cause of molecular quantum transitions, which so far does not have a final solution in physics and chemistry (at first glance this may sound incredible fact). For details please see my recent articles:

1) Egorov, V. V. (2013). Optical lineshapes for dimers of polymethine dyes: dozy-chaos theory of quantum transitions and Frenkel exciton effect. RSC Advances 3, 4598–4609. doi: 10.1039/c3ra22148b

2) Egorov, V. V. (2013). “Discovery of dozy chaos and discovery of quanta: analogy being in science and perhaps in human progress,” in Chaos and Complex Systems: Proc. of the 4th Int. Interdisciplinary Chaos Symp., eds S. G. Stavrinides, S. Banerjee, H. Caglar, and M. Ozer (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag), 41–46. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-33914-1_6

3) Egorov, V. V. (2013). “Dozy chaos in chemistry: simplicity in complexity,” in Chaos and Complex Systems: Proc. of the 4th Int. Interdisciplinary Chaos Symp., eds S. G. Stavrinides, S. Banerjee, H. Caglar, and M. Ozer (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag), 219–224. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-33914-1_28

Hi, I suggest to have a look at the force-based simulation models of Dirk Drasdo. He applied the approach, which I used to model pedestrian and crowd dynamics, to model tissue growth, wound healing, and cancer. Best regards, Dirk

Why is the heart immune of cancer among other organs? It may be a clue for understanding physical cause of cancer.

I believe its is high content of functional mitochondria.

https://www.academia.edu/4254683/The_bio-energetic_theory_of_carcinogenesis

Hi. If anyone is exploring/leading the tumor development stage I'm interested in exchanging information on tissue modelling at [email protected]. We have several funded medical projects on the run and this really helps us to go further, in special when biophotonic detection modelling may be involved.

Very nice question, indeed!

Here is a very abstract attempt to characterize cancer in the context of stem cells.

Dear Prof. Parvin,

I believe that a cancerous growth is associated with an abnormally large concentration of molecular quantum transitions in it. In this respect, the cancerous growth is similar to the brain. But they differ essentially in structure. The cancerous growth, lowly organized in structure, uses a huge amount of molecular quantum transitions for destructive purposes. It is the high organization of the brain in structure allows him to use a huge amount of molecular quantum transitions for constructive purposes. For details please see

Egorov, V. V. (2013). “Discovery of dozy chaos and discovery of quanta: analogy being in science and perhaps in human progress,” in Chaos and Complex Systems: Proc. of the 4th Int. Interdisciplinary Chaos Symp., eds S. G. Stavrinides, S. Banerjee, H. Caglar, and M. Ozer (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag), 41–46. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-33914-1_6

Sincerely,

Vladimir Egorov

Attached please find the above article.

Dear Veladimir

The idea of "molecular quantum transitions" and the correlation to the Cancer tumors is very intersting, however we need to detect its effects. I am thinking how it can be measured or converted to a sensible parameter.What is the cause of these transitions? Do you have any comments?

According to "molecular quantum transitions", the brain tumors may differ from other organ's tumors because you believe that cancer growth is similar to brain function! Then, the brain cancer differs from any other cancers?!

Dear Parviz,

Cause of molecular quantum transitions is a dozy chaos – a collective chaotic motion of electrons, nuclei and their electromagnetic interaction in the transient state of molecular quantum transitions. I believe to detect dozy chaos (for example, in the transient state of chemical reactions) is one of the main problems of the modern experimental science (unfortunately, I am a theorist). As to whether the brain tumors differ from other organ’s tumors. I do not think that they have a fundamental difference. Just talking about that for this type of tissue occurs for some as yet unknown reason, the abnormally high concentration of dozy chaos, which in the human body, mainly is concentrated in the brain. Including some part of the brain, this abnormally high concentration of dozy chaos may result in a tumor in this part of the brain. Roughly speaking, as a result of, say, a stressful situation, the brain ceases to function normally on a biological level, and as a result turns out to be not able to hold a huge amount of dozy chaos. It is as if the brain spills dozy chaos, posing in some tissues of the body or of the brain itself an abnormally high concentration of dozy chaos, which leads to cancer.

How do you explain the reverse condition where we investigate Heart, an organ with scarce probability getting cancerous.Why such a dozy chaos rarely exisits in heart?

As far as "physics of cancer" is concerned I think Derek is pointing in the right direction with biomechanics. Steven Vogel's 2003 textbook on the subject was recently reissued and reviewed in Integr. Comp. Biol.

http://books.google.com/books?id=UuuPLIxY1cwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:Steven+inauthor:Vogel&hl=en&ei=avTiS5-LDYa0lQeDtN3_AQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

The review:

How do you relate " Comparative Biomechanics" with "Physics of Cancer"?

A few sort of Cancers , for instance " Hotchkin Disease " may be cured with high rate of success greater than 75%. The combination of traditional chemo-drugs and radiotherapy are usually prescribed. Furthermore, some types of brain tumors may be healed after a definite radiation doses ( e.g, gamma therapy). Other radiations such as electron beam, proton beam or even neutron beam and other particle therapies are regularly used for diverse cancer treatments. Cancers may behave stochastic or non-stochastic, some of them are suppressed and some types are hardly treated. It means that cancer is not a single disease, but includes a complicated series of diseases with different profilation rates.Therfore, it is essential to apply a variety of chemo-drugs or radiation therapies for each type.

On the other hand, according to a given comment , Cancer may be generic or metabolic disease. It is a public belief that cell finally violates the governing genetic order and becomes cancerous.The time of occurence depends on the genetic basis of patient belonging to what race, living in which area , climate and environment. The environmental stimulus such as some sorts of viruses, bacterial chronic diseases, foods with preservatives and excessive additives, non-organic foods, traffic smokes, smoking, pollutants in air and water, toxic chemical components, radiowaves, radioactive radiations and permanent stress and very hazardous illnesses( which target the immunity system such as Aids) may weaken the human immunity system to become vulnerable in demolishing the cancerous cells (smaller rate of cell removal) or those stimulus may command to induce more unhealthy cells ( greater rate of cell gowth).

In a general model, those parameters ought to be considered. However, I believe that the statistics based on patients' follow-up would be very helpful to understand some cancer characteristics by logging of proliferation rates over a period of time, if the rate equations are one of our tools for modelling of "Physics of Cancer".

Dear Professor Parvin,

I don't know if that last comment was directed to me, but regarding the one before it I just meant that one way of looking at the "physics of cancer" is that of cell biophysics etc., considering the mechanical nature of metastasis as already highlighted by Derek Abbott, and like Umar commented above, apologies if this is the lense you were looking when you said 'physics'.

If on the other hand this could be of interest, see for example Tavano's PhD thesis with accompanying project description:

“The hypothesis that cellular biomechanics may play a significant role in tumour genesis and cancer invasion, gains every day more and more support: therefore characterizing these properties in connection with the membrane and cytoskeleton organization could be very important for understanding better the migration mechanisms and to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics tools.”

http://dancojoc.wix.com/om-lab#!projects

http://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/bitstream/10077/7368/3/Tavano_phd.pdf

Cell biophysics comes very much under the banner "physics of cancer", and the mechanics of cell motility (an important aspect of metastasis) is researched by many labs - e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2917191/

Regards,

Louis

To the above

Dear Parviz,

A difference in tumors in the organs and in the brain exists indeed. This difference is in when they arise in time. The risk of “normal” cancer occurs when a person falls asleep, that is when there is an outflow of dozy chaos from the brain to other organs, where its concentration becomes abnormally high. On the contrary, the risk of brain cancer occurs when a person wakes up, that is when a lot of dozy chaos returns to the brain from all the other organs.

Further, as to your question about the heart. The heart of a living person differs from all other organs, including the brain, by the fact that it is continuously working and never rest. This means that the concentration of dozy chaos in it is almost constant. The risk of cancer, as is clear from the above, is linked with a time-limited sharp increase in the concentration of dozy chaos in an organ or in the brain.

Sincerely,

Vladimir

Dear Vladimir Egorov,

Can you direct me to some articles on Dozy Chaos? I am a physician by training and all these sound alien to me!

Best,

- Jason

Louis

Thank you for your comment. Do you mean that metastasis arises from the cell migration based on "cellular biomechanics"? How do you define "metastasis"?

Dear Vladimir

The concept of dozy chaos as the self organization of transient state in molecular quantum transition is very interesting however its application in "physics of cancer" should be proven by measurement of a relevant sensible parameters. Do you agree?

Hi Parvin,

Metastasis is the process in which a tumour moves to 'invade' another part of the body, so cell migration studies are of clear relevance. The mechanical forces on the cells at the time of this migration are important as is the biochemical environment, have a look around the internet for more info.

Cheers,

Louis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastasis

Dear Parviz,

Sure, I agree, but this requires not only my personal efforts that are crucially restricted namely in experiment.

Vladimir

Dear Louis

What makes the cell migrate from its location to other organs? particularly it is essential to model the onset of the proliferation state.

To my knowledge based on a proposed model in physics of cancer, metastasis denotes the final stage for most of cancers and onset of proliferation state, where the unhealthy cell profileration rate becomes much greater than the cell removal rate when the immunity system totally fails to demolish those cells as if it resembles to command suicide (halt alert) allowing the geometrical cell growth without any defense. However, there is at least one exception: Hotchkin disease. There are many evidences of success after chemo-treatment that the immunity system may struggle for survival even at final stage.Therefore, due to the inherent nature of cancerous cells , those may be categorized as aggressive and adaptive.

Hi Parviz,

That's a good question! Luckily someone else already asked that question

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Tumor_metastasis-what_makes_the_tumor_cell_leave_its_microenvironment?exp_tc=tprc

If you have a more specific question, try http://biology.stackexchange.com where people will help you, or take a look at any introductory oncology textbook etc.

Some reviews on metastasis that should provide the background information you need:

Chiang et al 2008 : http://dx.doi.org/10.1056%2FNEJMra0805239

FAQs from the National Cancer Institute : http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/metastatic

Bacac 2008 : A review of "The Metastatic Cancer Cell" http://dx.doi.org/10.1146%2Fannurev.pathmechdis.3.121806.151523

Also this news article is interesting and simplifies the paper in question : "miRNAs drive both cancer onset and metastasis" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130703140242.htm

Best wishes,

Louis

Yes, there are different models, among of them there is an attempt to create a kind of "information" kind model: the cells communicate with each other by so called exosoms, and this communication could be considered with the methods of standard communication theory. We are now starting work on it.

Recently, we have studied in-vitro normal and unhealthy tissues using hybrid spectroscopy technique (LIBS-LIF and Photoacoustic) to demonstrate that cancerous tumor significantly differs from healthy tissue according to the following article:

Mohammad Keraji ; Fateme Hadavand Mirzaee ; Ali Bavali ; Hossein Mehravaran ; Parviz Parvin , "Laser induced fluorescence and breakdown spectroscopy and acoustic response, to discriminate malignant and normal tissues"

http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceeding.aspx?articleid=1698837

Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 8798, id. 87980A 6 pp. (2013).

DOI: 10.1117/12.2032557

However, the extension of this work on real time in-vivo spectroscopy(The acquired time resolved spectra) may be useful to give us more information at the onset of metastasis when the cell-communication is totally disturbed in comparison to normal cell communications in normal cell tissues.

Hence, we may enable to insert expressions into the rate equations explaining the effect of the cell communications on cell removal rate leading to cancer modeling.

Yes, the Fisher-KPP partial differential equations modelize the wound healing, as well as the proliferation of cancer.

The basic rules for modeling are: Known the input to system, output the system, parameters for described the behavior of system all this from point of view engineering and physics. If we need implement this rule on medical concept with human body, I think must be done with the following steps:

1. limit the position of Cancer if this is with muscle or blood or other position.

2. from step one if the Cancer done with muscle for example we go to mathematical model of muscle and we have many reference about that but now we will modified this model by adding the effect of Cancer as disturbance for this model .

I mean we will make model of performance of Cancer with muscle.

Many thanks Prof. Mohammed we can start to modeling this performance with assistance of specialized from medical filed ( Neuro surgery ) , where if we need modeling the cancer in muscle ( as Case study ), I have some papers about electromygraphic signal, the indication for construction muscle is EMG signal, The modeling of this construction depend on four main parameters:

1. number of motor unit in muscle

2. muscle fiber density

3. muscle fiber area

4. motor unit diameter

if we used these parameters to model the initial size of muscle that effect by cancer

then the disturbance for this model the rate change in the size of muscle which depends upon the increments for the number of cells because the affect of cancer.

Now the neuro surgery specialized must be given the rate change with time to able write differential equation for this rate to write the final mathematic model for equation of cancer performance with muscle.

Nice to interact with your ideas in reference to simulation studies. I am pretty confident your future studies in this thrust area would certainly be providing new insights into diagnostic as well as remediation tools in cancer biology. I am presently guiding a Ph.D. scholar in the area of oral cancer focusing on modeling and simulation studies of free radical scavenging enzymes, and will be in touch with you for exploring the possibilities of collaboration in near future.

For an approach to physics of cancer modelling, let us start with the cancers with most probable treatment success(high rate of healing).

Dear Parviz, You might want to look at

www.civilized.com/pdffiles/tumor.pdf‎

Let assume that the impact of malfunction of immunity system is high in occurrence of cancer. Then, for patients which suffer diseases such as acquired deficiency of immunity syndrome (AIDS) , the likelihood of cancer may be higher than normal people. Is it true? it may affect on the rate equations or any other simulation of "Physics of Cancer".

The works on modelling of tumor growth are conducted at the University of Padova in Italy under the supervision of prof. B. Schrefler. For that modelling the multi-phase porous media mechanics is used which initiated from modelling of e.g. young concrete and soil. You can have a look on those two papers:

Initial research: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234048690_Tumor_growth_modeling_from_the_perspective_of_multiphase_porous_media_mechanics?ev=prf_pub

The actual model: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258302166_A_multiphase_model_for_three-dimensional_tumor_growth

Article Tumor growth modelling from the perspective of porous media mechanics

Article A multiphase model for three-dimensional tumor growth

Please receive article published in "CA CANCER J CLIN" whose title " Nanooncology: The future of cancer diagnostic and therapy". good reading

Social models based on sociology may exhibit behaviors similar to that of cancerous colonies.

These Highlighted phrases may reveal the analoguy of normal- cancerous tissues to somehow human communities suffering social diorders such as srikes, demonstration, riots and public outrages that may finally lead to civil war and central power subversion. In fact, I beleive this would be useful accounting for Cancer modelling :

1)Normal tissues are not as pourous(segregated) as the cancerous tissues.

2)Canerous cells can find other abnormal cells and may communicate one another to join the outrageous community by multiple mutations( underground activities leading to social disorders-outrages ,etc.).

3) Cancerous cells are physically and chemically distinguishable from mormal cells.( their minds and their thoughts differ from normal population and they are usually in minority, however they struggle to perform peaceful activities such as strikes-demonstrations, negotiation and meetings to lure the fans etc or conversely, the aggresive activities to become majority bu means of hostile methods ).

4) Canceous cell nutrition and breathing rates are different from normal cells ( militia - guerrilla and rebelous attitudes inherently differ from normal life methods).

5) Process is irrevirsible ,i.e. normal cells may turn into malignant ones while the reversal process rarely takes place ( normal people may change their mind to join rebelions while militias are seldom surrended and may be sentenced if they are arrested).

6) Some of cancerous cells are ceased to profilerate and some of them do not.

( some of rebels succeed to grow to change themselves into a revolution and some fail to achieve ).

7)Metastasis means the suicide command for immunity system. [ the security or intelligent systems ( analoguy of human immunity system) may fail to follow the ever- increasing oponents. Furthermore some key- individuals may initially betray against the central power ( in human body, some unhealthy cells in sensitive positions may cause gradual disorders of immunity system not to identify some cancerous cells) and many other similar behaviors to be analoguous between human body and human sociology ].

Therefore , " social models ", which arise from human ways of life and his opinions, willingness, needs as the cultures of various communities, may elaborately contribute to model " Physics of Cancer". Particularly we are inspired that the origins of social disorders may be similar to the origins of cell disorders?! These factors consist of social discriminations , poverty, ignorance, unjustice, harsh atmosphere and even phsychological factors such as childhood obsessions revenge, rage, ruthlessness,, mental defficiencies and many other psychological and social roots. Similarly, the cacerous colonies may be induced by the same inconvenient conditions in cellular populations such as stress, anxiety, being in poisonous atmospheres namely pollution ,high dose of radioactivity, exposure to chemical components and bad nutrition, lack of sport or spiritual activities or palliative leisures as well as some genetic disorders or inheritance roots ( immunity system defects or its inherent mal-functions).

Eventually, we conclude that Cell is the building blocks of human body and human body is the building block of society. Perhaps the social disease is similar to human disease and their treatments may be similar. Based on the social model, I will summarize the list of stage by stage treatment protocol corresponding to the primitive or advanced episodes of disease.

I ask this question for a few days.

"Is the intersection of physics and medicine/biology open to sociology?

In physics, the laws applicable to the cosmological scale are not valid on the atomic scale. The dangers of this mathematization of the World was, as we know, the great concern of the mathematician and founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. This is the central subject of his famous book, titled: Crisis of European Sciences and Crisis, published in 1936."

Nobody answered me on this interogation.

By reading the answers to your question related to cancer, I found an answer that makes the analogy cancer disease and sociology.

thank you Parviz

@ Parviz

AIDS patients have more viral induced cancers, as could be expected from the fact that they are immunodeficient. But otherwise, they don't get much more cancers than others, which indicates that cancer is not a consequence of immunodeficiency.

From all discussion I suggest start with modeling of cancer by dividing the modeling to two main parts :

1. Modeling for causing of cancer.

2. modeling of performance of human cells affected by cancer

about modeling for point one must available the inputs such this diseases caused by viruses , heredity parameters, .... and then must limit the outputs parameter such as increase the size of cell , liquid in side cell ,... from input and output can be using ANN or Fuzzy system to identify the mathematical model which describe the is system.

about model no. two this can be depends upon human cell which I explain in the last written and use the same inputs but the output can be used the size in cell as final output of model.

I suggest any neuro surgery specialized can submit with us to complete this model

Dear Daniel

Thank you for your comment. If cancer is not the consequence of immunodeficiency , What would be the function of of immunity system in the formation of cancer?

Do you mean that it there is no likelihood of cancer occurrence based on the malfunctions of immunity system? Those malfunctions may be defect in identification of unhealthy cells, wrong communication between T cells and terminators or any setback in receptors ?

Dear Benamar

I believe that collective cellular behaviors can be modeled according to the sociology concepts and social affairs , as you have asserted before.

Dear Parvin,

It is quite clear that the adaptive immune system is important against virus induced cancer. For other cancers, the immune system reacts again tumor cells and impacts on cancer evolution, but the likelihood to get non viral cancer remains important in immune competent individuals, so it cannot be said that the function of the immune system is to combat cancer.

Dear Daniel

As you stated the immunity system function is essential in the occurrence of virus induced cancer and in the evolution of non-viral cancers. Therefore, the separate modeling is needed for each specific cancer where the effective performance of immunity system may be different in various cancers. However, I believe that the immunity system may be enhanced in combat with cancer tumors at least in earlier stages. As a consequence, the simulation of " Physics of Cancer" mostly based on the capability of body defense system. For instance, to my knowledge , the immunity system may occasionally become aggressive and attack to healthy cells, this could be a clue to train the immunity to attack to definite cancerous cells instead.

I am sure your comments is very useful for us to learn more about the function of immunity system in cancer combat to fulfill that suggestion.

Regards

Parvin

I summarize the comments as below:

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 .

Hmmm, I am quite new to this type of modelling but that "army" approach sounds far too mechanistic to me. If that was as "simple" surely the modelling approach would have been more widely spread. If we talk about the army analogy, we could then think of the Trojan Horse where even a healthy army got fooled.

If the approach is about using a predator-prey I do not see much value there.

One thing I would have like to hear about is the fundamental trigger which transforms a healthy cell into "incontrolled" cell. My understanding is that cancer could be generated with high energy radiations [radio-activity] for example. In that specific case I guess there might exist some acurate enough transformation at the cell level which will cause that cell to reproduce more than expected.

The next point is about the existence of threshold change [and possible generation of markers] which the body can detect. Do we have such information?

I hope this helps the discussion.

According to the Health and Scientific National Cancer Agency

The most important factor is the stage of disease at diagnosis : As with most cancers, the chances of recovery are better if the cancer is found at an early stage .

In general , it must be remembered that cancer survival statistics :

- Are very general in nature,

- Can vary considerably within each stage of the disease,

- Are based on large numbers of people with cancer and do not predict exactly what will happen to a particular individual ,

- Are based on data that may be several years old , so that does not reflect the impact of recent advances in early detection and treatment ,

- Do not necessarily represent the presence of other diseases, individual reactions to treatment or those who die from causes other than cancer.

According to Edmund Husserl , the language of phenomenology must necessarily remain "flow" and the application of mathematical precision definitions is totally inappropriate in the phenomenology

the required approach to study this problem must be based on new representations of reality , taking into account the volatility , fluctuations , chaos , disorder, blur , openness, creativity, contradiction, the ambiguity, paradox.

To account for the complex , systemic imposes concrete understanding of concepts of its own : global vision system , level of organization , interaction, feedback, control , purpose, evolution.

Well, I know about the attempts to model the cancer with a help of complex networks. It is done by prof. Igor Jurisica, Canada.

Dear John

I srongly agree with you. I believe that healthy army (immunity system) is able to identify and demolish even single cancerous cell to avoid the irregular growth.

An example is me! I never played with clay and soil during my childhood !!

I was always catching cold during winter and even during summer!

I gradually found out that my immunity system is vulnerable because of my childhood and today life ,i.e, hard working,stressful job and no body- exercise. Afterwards, I started regular soft sportive exercises: weekly- regular walking- climbing, tennis, swimming and even going ski in winter, as a cosequence, my health was improved greatly . I changed my daily life and added recreation and leisure time within my current time schedule. Afterwards, I have not seriously caught cold since then . I understood that immunity system can be trained properly. Now, I imagine a step forward , the immuity system can be trained to destroy the enemy and rebelion cells by itself, just in accordance of your belief.

Fractal growth and cancer http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10919633 (and related citations)

Modeling of cancer is very complex because, is a very impersonal disease, and does not respect sex, race, wealth, age, or any other “human” characteristics.

I think you have to focus on genes because genes regulate the micro- and , Events macrosopic by encoding proteins that control our structure and function. Errors in the genes that control growth , while imperfect cells can begin to take root. These cells causes in most cases, a cascade events. This cascade of events could take years to produce fashion unnoticed until symptoms appear advanced cancer.

The cancer cells are equipped with a series of self- protection mechanisms. These genes may produce proteins could keep our own immune system disposal Intruder.

These cells are chameleons . If we treat them with drugs to try to kill them, they can change their colors by mutation, and then to be resistant drugs.

Therapies are not natural, and cause nausea, loss of appetite, fatigue and exhaustion of our cells that protect infection and those that carry oxygen.

The approach or models should be based on the construction of therapies can make three fundamental missions: research on the enemy, recognize the enemy and kill the enemy without causing side effects.

Reference:

The gale encyclopedia of cancer, vol 1 , Ellen Thakery, Editor (2002)

Thank you John

As I understood, the trace elements (ppm levels) such as metals and semi-conductors may be very useful to enhance our defense against the hostile cancerous cells.

For example garlic and ginseng and some other medical herbs contain organic germanium to enhance the oxygen availability to activate the elements of immunity system such as macrophages and T-cells and also induces free radical scavenger production etc, to reinforce the human -anti cancer army.

Those can be considered in modeling of " Physics of Cancer", however I could not find the correlation of "energy medicine","electromagnetic phenomena" with the model and "stimulating organic germanium in herbs".

1 - The human body is a block, ie a group which reacts block

2 - The immune system is usually able to distinguish between what belongs to your body and that tries to enter it, every cell in our body has its surface the same proteins that characterize you. This system of recognition of "self" is called in biology, major histocompatibility complex. Any substance capable of eliciting an immune response is called an antigen

3-The operation, the correction of metabolism by trace elements such as selenium, germanium, or others.

Is the concept (Reaction of the body block, antigen, trace elements) can help the human body to research the enemy, recognize the enemy and kill the enemy without causing side effects ?

Thank you John for the relevant answers

Happy Holidays

John

Thank you for your interesting answer.

What is the range of membrane voltage?

I add another fact- not only cancerous cells have lower membrane potential than healthy ones , but also the cancerous cells may emit weaker IR radiation than healthy cells( it may be sensed by IR camera).

Searching the electromagnetic receptor structure in the immunity system that may be enhanced by organic germanium, is quite novel idea to me. If immunity system is equipped with photo- receptors then cancerous cell illumination may differ from normal cells too.

Hence, I beleive that deep understanding of our defense system is essential before modeling " Physics of cancer ". We may answer the following questions first:

How does immunity system identify bacteria and viruses?

How does immunity system distinguish the unhealthy cell from healthy ones?

How does it function against unhealthy cells while it does not attack the healthy ones?

We must investigate the detection and sensing means of immunity systems in details.

Thanks for the question and Thanks for all valuable comments. I wish all of you a Happy New Year 2014.

Dear All,

The modeling of cancer proliferation using only the formal modeling paradigms we use in physics is not possible. The system is computationally irreducible. First, it is multi-physics and multiscale phenomena with hard scale separation and undetermined open boundary conditions (environmental and individual factor), making it a strongly chaotic and undetermined system. Second, the parameter space is extremely large, so even very local, well known and well formally described phenomena cannot be predicted with adequate accuracy.

However, the problem is the same, in spirit, as weather forecast. So, to make some predictions of cancer proliferation, we should develop the data based models with data assimilation procedures supported by formal mathematical constrains. We should create the diagnostic system consisting of data acquisition, data analysis, modeling and visualization tools allowing to use interactively the knowledge of doctors. Modeling using data and machine learning tools, supported by classical computer modeling, interactive visualization techniques can give as short and long term predictions, corrected by continual observations. This would allow us to implement an optimal cancer therapy.

Dear all

These are highlighted synopsis of "Physics of Cancer" so far:

Social model, Porous model, Random variable, Monte carlo simulation, Nueral networks, Rate equations, Data communications, Physical hallmarks of cancer, Electrical properties of cancer cells, Cell membrane process, Physical definition of cancer, Genetic or metabolic,Stem cells, Dozy chaos,Random variation, Fractal chemotherapy, Information model, standard communication model, Multi phase porous media mechanics, Immunity system function to combat cancer,

Dear John

Thank you for intersting comments.

In this case, Spatial potential distribution over cacerous tumor may sensibly different from normal tissues. It may be a clue for further investigation.

Accumulation charges on cell membrane may be in conjunction with ionizing factors too?

A number of very valuable contributions to this matter can be found here:

http://vbl.ts.infn.it/SiteVBL/Papers.html

Here's a paper online from today which seems relevant:

Babahosseini et al (2014) Biomechanical Profile of Cancer Stem-like/Tumor Initiating Cells Derived from a Progressive Ovarian Cancer Model. Nanomedicine, doi: 10.1016/j.nano.2013.12.009

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1549963413007740

Dear all,

I am PhD student and I am taking biophysics. I am interested in physics of cancer and my research is about the diagnosis of cancer using nanoparticles and laser. I appreciate the useful comments in QA.

Recently, the various nanoparticles are extensively employing for therapy and diagnosis of cancer. Some of them such as Quantum dots enhance contrast in an imaging by absorption mechanism. Some destroy malignant cell in a different ways like Photodynamic therapy (PDT). In PDT, a photosensitizer or photosensitizing agent is injected into a patient and absorbed by cells all over the patient’s body. After a couple of days, the agent is found mostly in cancer cells. Laser light is then used to activate the agent and destroy cancer cells. Another therapeutic modality is photothermal therapy (PTT). The aim is to find the best nanoparticle with suitable properties to employ in vivo experiments.

John

Thank you for your useful comments.

1- Immunodeficiency may be caused by radioactive radiations, chemical agents, environmental pollution, viral diseases, stressful life and malnutrition, etc.

Do you agree?

2- Ionizing radiation may induce softening or hardening effects on tissue equivalent polymers and tissues. It depends on the radiation dose.

1 - Among the eleven trace elements essential for humans, selenium is linked to genetque code, moreover, it is anti-oxidants,

2 - can be synthesized nanowires of selenium (eco-friendly) by bacteria

3 - see research if these nanowires can be used to fix, transport and the larger the drugs on cancerous cells , once identified without side effect (also review related genetic code, it is worth exploring)

Benamar

1-Cancer biology obeys the same rules of physics i.e, conservation of energy and mass. Therefore, similar to a physical system, it may be explained by a set of differential equations.

2- The impact of various nano-structures on cancer therapy is enormous and should be investigated in details.

John

Do you believe the likelihood of the enhancement of immunity system to function more effectively against cancerous cells (TNF)?happy life, well nutrition (suitable diet), good atmosphere, warm family , far from stress...

Is it statistically true?

In fact , it is well understood that life expectation is high in certain areas such as Mediterranean coasts etc, conversely it is low when one lives in stressful polluted populated cities.

Yes, It is certain that stress disrupts metabolism and causes many diseases.

This point can be checked and verified by statistical governementale Public Health