Physical Sciences Approaches to Cancer Research

Cancer is a complex disease that continues to be one of the leading causes of death. However, cancerous tumors can also be considered as a type of living material, with remarkable structural and mechanical properties and the ability to modify these properties in response to external stimuli to safeguard its existence. Thus, in addition to the important biomedical motivation for studying cancer, there is significant motivation to examine the physical and materials properties of cancer with the goal of developing biomimetic materials and model systems for analysis of cell responses to their physical microenvironment. In this collection, we seek articles that describe experimental, theoretical, and simulation studies that investigate the physical and materials properties of cancer and the corresponding cellular responses. Possible topics include discrete element method (DEM) and other numerical simulations of tumor growth and metastasis, studies evaluating the mechanical properties of cells and tissues, and investigations that employ engineered model systems to analyze tumor and stromal cell behavior as a function of their physical microenvironment.

Topics covered include, but are not limited to:

Guest Editors

Claudia Fischbach, Cornell University

Corey O’Hern, Yale University

Adam Engler, University of California, San Diego