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Created by: Mark Chaplain, Nikos Sfakianakis, Dimitris Katsaounis, Nicholas Harbour, and Thomas Williams
Issue 300: Mathematical modelling has the potential to be a powerful tool in predicting cancer invasion and metastatic spread. A particularly challenging aspect of cancer invasion lies in the understanding of the intricate interplay between epithelial and mesenchymal phenotypes, which can greatly influence tumour progression and response to therapy. We have developed a hybrid 3D model which we hope can form the basis of a computational platform which has the ability to estimate quantitatively both the extent of the local spread of the primary cancer and the number and extent of secondary metastatic growths. The image shows an invading primary tumour where epithelial cancer cells (yellow regions) undergo an epithelial-mesenchymal-transition (EMT) to produce individual mesenchymal cancer cells (shown in red). These mesenchymal cells have the ability to invade the local tissue and then begin to undergo the reverse transition (mesenchymal-epithelial) forming isolated “cancer islands” which are the sources of subsequent metastatic spread. Based on the paper: A Genuinely Hybrid, Multiscale 3D Cancer Invasion and Metastasis Modelling Framework published in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology.