The Clore Center for Biological Physics
Date:
Lecture / Seminar
Time: 12:45-14:30
Title: When Will the Cancer Start?
Location: Nella and Leon Benoziyo Physics Library
Lecturer: Anatoly B. Kolomeisky
Abstract: Cancer is a genetic disease that results from accumulation of unfavorable mutati ... Read more Cancer is a genetic disease that results from accumulation of unfavorable mutations. As soon as genetic and epigenetic modifications associated with these mutations become strong enough, the uncontrolled tumor cell growth is initiated, eventually spreading through healthy tissues. Clarifying the dynamics of initiation is critically important for understanding the mechanisms of cancer. Here we present a new theoretical approach, stimulated by analogy with chemical reactions and other stochastic processes in physics and biology, to evaluate the dynamic processes associated with cancer initiation. It is based on a discrete-state stochastic description of the formation of tumors as a fixation of unfavorable mutations. Thus, the main idea is to map complex processes of cancer initiation into a network of stochastic transitions between specific states of the tissue. Using a first-passage analysis, the probabilities for cancer to appear and the average times before this happens are explicitly calculated. The method is applied for estimating the initiation times from clinical data for 28 different types of cancer. It is found, surprisingly, that the higher probability of cancer to occur does not necessarily lead to the fast starting the cancer. This suggests that both lifetime risks and cancer initiation times must be used to evaluate the possibility of appearance of the cancer tumor. The similarity of the mechanisms of cancer initiation processes with dynamics of chemical reactions are discussed. Furthermore, it is shown that the order of mutations might lead to different cancer initiation dynamics, explaining surprising experimental observations that order of mutations can affect the cancer outcome. Our view of cancer initiation as a motion in the effective free-energy landscape provides new insights into the mechanisms of these complex processes. FOR THE LATEST UPDATES AND CONTENT ON SOFT MATTER AND BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS AT THE WEIZMANN, VISIT OUR WEBSITE: https://www.biosoftweizmann.com/ Close abstract
