An ecosystem perspective of cancer

ATTENTION: En raison des mesures de restriction d’accès au Campus Triolet, les personnes extérieures à l’Université de Montpellier doivent venir munies de: AFFICHE IMPRIMÉE + UNE PIECE D'IDENTITÉ.

Cancer is conventionally seen as a disease resulting from our own cells accumulating a number of genetic mutations. Recent clinical evidence shows that this view might be too simplistic and that intra-tumour heterogeneity as well as Darwinian evolution constitute a better framework in which to understand cancer progression and treatment. In this talk I will present a biologically-driven computational model of cancer to investigate the role of selection in prostate cancer metastases to the bone and shed light on how the evolutionary dynamics of cancer impact treatment efficacy.

Relevant publications:

Basanta, D., Anderson ARA. Exploiting ecological principles to better understand cancer progression and treatment. Interface Focus. 2013 Aug 6;3(4):20130020

Araujo A, Cook L, Lynch CC, Basanta D. An integrated computational model of the bone microenvironment in bone-metastatic prostate cancer. Cancer Res. 2014 May 1;74(9):2391-401.

Kaznatcheev A, Scott JG, Basanta D. Edge effects in game-theoretic dynamics of spatially structured tumoursJ R Soc Interface. 2015 Jul 6;12(108):20150154.