Physics also wants to cure cancer
Universitat de Barcelona papers 2018/10/02
A malignant tumor is characterized by its ability to spread around its surroundings. To do so, tumor cells stick to the surrounding tissue (mainly collagen) and use forces to propel. The journal Nature Physics published a study by a team led by Xavier Trepat, ICREA researcher at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and lecturer at the Department of Biomedicine University of Barcelona (UB), and Jaume Casademunt, professor of Physics at the UB and member of the University of Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems (UBICS), reveals the forces these tumor cells use to spread. The relation between these forces and the cell movement goes beyond current physical laws.