The Physics of Cancer

Caterina A. M. La Porta is Associate Professor of General Pathology at Università degli Studi di Milano and group leader of the Molecular Oncology Laboratory there. In 2015, she founded the university's Center for Complexity and Biosystems. She has organized several interdisciplinary workshops on the physics of cancer funded by the European Center for Atomic and Molecular Calculations (CECAM) and the European Science Foundation (ESF). Stefano Zapperi is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Università degli Studi di Milano, where he coordinates the Center for Complexity and Biosystems, and Research Leader at the Institute for Scientific Interchange (ISI) Foundation in Turin, Italy. He is an expert in the statistical mechanics of non-equilibrium complex systems and has worked in fracture, plasticity, friction, magnetism and biophysics. He is the recipient of numerous awards and is currently the chairman of the steering committee of the Conference on Complex Systems.

Preface; 1. Introduction to the cell; 2. The biology of cancer; 3. A modeling toolbox for cancer growth; 4. Vascular hydrodynamics and tumor angiogenesis; 5. Cancer stem cells and the population dynamics of tumors; 6. Biomechanics of cancer; 7. Cancer cell migration; 8. Chromosome and chromatin dynamics in cancer; 9. Control of tumor growth by the immune system; 10. Pharmacological approaches: old and new; 11. Outlook on the physics of cancer: a new interdisciplinary area; References; Index.