Regensburg 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 15: Cell Mechanics I

BP 15.1: Hauptvortrag

Dienstag, 18. März 2025, 11:45–12:15, H44

Does Oncology Need Physics of Cancer? — •Josef Käs — Peter Debye Institute for Soft Matter Physics, Leipzig University, Linnéstr 5, 04103 Leipzig

Cancer is a complex disease that accounts for nearly one in six deaths worldwide. More than 90 percent of deaths are due to metastasis * the process by which cancer cells spread from the primary tumor and seed a secondary tumor in a distant tissue. Despite advances in cancer treatment, metastatic recurrences remain a significant challenge. Understanding metastasis is crucial for a reliable predictive diagnosis needed for personalized oncology and to develop therapies that inhibit cancer spreading. The metastatic cascade routes in a mechanical problem for tumor cells on their way through the human body squeezing through dense tissues. Two clinical trials with more than 2000 breast cancer patients in each study prove that the onset of cancer cell motility can be explained as an unjamming transition and local cancer spreading of cancer cell clusters embedded in ECM must be described as active nematic droplets in a nematic phase. The gained physical parameters can be used a prognostic tumor marker for metastatic risk that improves breast cancer diagnosis by 26 percent. Beyond diagnostics the mechanical modulation of cancer cells by adipocytes points us towards migrastatic therapies to suppress metastasis.

Keywords: Physics of Cancer; Diagnosis; Unjamming; Active nematics; Lipidomics