Christopher X J. Jensen
Associate Professor, Pratt Institute

How understanding social evolution might help treat cancer

Posted 29 Jan 2014 / 0

The information sharing issue is really interesting here: in some sense, the medical field has the most detailed organismal knowledge available for any species, and evolutionary biologists are generally not that aware of the depth of what is known about the functions of the human body. Although I think that evolutionists have a lot to offer to medicine, it is also easy to see that the reverse is true (or truer?).

One example from this talk: the fact that cells — including cancer cells — disperse not just through passive processes but through their own motility. This opens up the possibility that we create with our cancer treatments the environment that favors metastasis. Fascinating!

This is a great talk for anyone wanting to better understand the connection between cancer and evolutionary processes!

 

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolutionary Modeling, Health & Medicine, Individual-based Models, Talks & Seminars

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