COMPETITION AND COOPERATION: STRATEGIES FOR CANCER GROWTH

CARLOS A. CONDAT; SILVIA A. MENCHÓN

Bariloche

Workshop; IX Latin American Workshop on Nonlinear Phenomena; 2005

Instituto Balseiro

Cancer growth is an extremely complex process, which is controlled by the competition for available nutrients and sometimes hindered by the action of external agents, i.e., therapies. We review the main strategies tumours use to ensure their continuous expansion: the development of subspecies with competitive advantages, and angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels that feed the tumour. During angiogenesis starving cancer cells signal the endothelial cells lining neighbouring capillaries that they must cooperate by extending the capillary system. We also present some preliminary results that emerge from our modelling of immunotherapy, which suggest that a reason why a therapy may fail is precisely because it kills cancer cells, decreasing intraspecies competition and therefore accelerating survivor replication.