Developing Physical Theories on the Emergence of Drug and Immune Resistance in Cancer in Arlington, VA; November 13-14, 2012.

William Marsh Rice University, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

The two day Workshop: "Developing Physical Theories on the Emergence of Drug and Immune Resistance in Cancer" will be a two-day highly-focused meeting bringing together oncologists and physicists with interests in both the theory of resistance and in novel measurement technology that would be used to guide any proposed conceptual framework. The goal of the meeting would be to define the scope of the problem, to present to the physicists the data that is available in the oncology community and to formulate an approach to move forward. The panel of physical scientists and oncological clinicians will develop a road map for probing new avenues towards the exploration of cancer etiology, especially drug-resistant cancers. At the very least, this meeting will serve to catalyze discussions between research scientists who traditionally very seldom communicate, and much less with the same language and/or temporal/spatial scale. The intention is that the meeting will result in; a) new research partnerships between theorists and medical experimentalists, and/or a general consensus that drives more basic oncological research with embedded theoretical modeling and simulation. The later will hasten a more detailed understanding of cancer etiology and perhaps treatment regimes.