What is it about?
Physics often has a simple hierarchy of theories, where more fundamental, microscopic descriptions help explain macroscopic behavior. Biology – especially tumor biology – has little or no such description. In this paper we describe a computational approach that tries to fill this gap for solid tumors, using the power of modern computers.
Featured Image
Photo by FLY:D on Unsplash
Why is it important?
In principle, a considerably more developed version of the computational model could help predict the evolution of a tumor in a cancer patient starting from a set of measurements. The prediction would be very much like the weather forecast, with probabilities attached to the different outcomes. However, it would still be useful, because we could try out and evaluate different treatments in silico, with timely estimates of the different outcomes.
Perspectives
I hope the paper can further stimulate research in this difficult and highly interdisciplinary field.
Edoardo Milotti
Universita degli Studi di Trieste
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Bridging the gap between the micro- and the macro-world of tumors, AIP Advances, March 2012, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/1.3699049.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
