Cancer as a Microevolutionary Process

It is not so much the inherent mechanistic diversity of cancers that makes them difficult to treat so much as the fact that they are evolving targets. Although they may be initially derived from a clonal progenitor, by the time they are macroscopic tumors comprise heterogeneous cell populations that are divergent both genetically and in acquired status (e.g. signaling, location, history). Unfortunately, most approaches to understanding cancers effectively treat a tumor as a unitary object possessed of a fixed, immutable and uniform set of responses. This workshop aimed to address the process of carcinogenesis using an evolutionary lens: it discussed what innate (e.g. tissue constraints, tumor suppressors and stress responses) and extrinsic (e.g. therapies) selective pressures shape tumor evolution /in vivo/, how this varies between tumor types, and what insights such a view offer us with respect to cancer biology.

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Published Information from the Workshop

Three Model for Life interviews were conducted and all published in Disease Models & Mechanisms;

• The piece on Fran Balkwill was published on May 9th.
• The piece on Ruslan Medzhitov was published on June 20th.
• The piece on Irv Weissman was published on August 22nd.

Each one consists of a condensed and adapted version of the transcribed interview plus audio excerpts included in the DMM podcast.