News Releases and Announcements
In the News:
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Announcement
Interdisciplinary Research Partnerships Set Out to Uncover the Physics of Cancer
Scientific American
December 2010
Medical researchers are trying a new approach in their decades-long quest to control and cure cancers--they are seeking the help of experts in unrelated fields such as physics, engineering and computer science [Read more]
Several PS-OC Investigators to be Honored at the Biomedical Engineering Society 2010 Annual Meeting
Three investigators from the PS-OC network have been recognized by the Biomedical Engineering Society and will be honored at the Biomedical Engineering Society 2010 Annual Meeting. Rebecca Richards-Kortum from the UTHSCH PS-OC will be delivering the Robert A. Pritzker Distinguished Lecture. [Read more] Nicholas A. Peppas from the UTHSCH PS-OC will be receiving the Distinguished Achievement Lecture Award. [Read more] Cynthia Reinhart-King from the Cornell PS-OC will be presenting the Rita Schaffer Memorial Lecture. [Read more] The complete Annual Meeting Program Book can be found at http://www.bmes.org/aws/BMES/pt/sp/meetings
Scientist's Work Bridges Math and Cancer
Science Careers and CTSciNet
August 2010
Though she calls herself a mathematician, Franziska Michor's work on mathematical models of cancer doesn't fit neatly in that field or in the field of cancer biology. Instead, Michor is working in uncharted scientific territory, building bridges among math, computer science, biology, and medicine to answer questions about the origins of cancer, relationships among cancer types, and the emergence of drug-resistant tumors. [Read more]
Crunching cancer with numbers
New Scientist
July 2010
WHEN Danny Hillis spent a day watching a top surgeon perform keyhole cancer surgery, he was left both exhilarated and depressed. The clinical precision with which the surgeon opened up the patient, used state-of-the-art robotic tools to remove their tumour, and sewed them back up again was breathtaking. It was also deeply disheartening. "With all our science, the best we can do is try to cut the cancer out with a knife," says Hillis. "That is the caveman approach to disease." [Read more]
Symposium Seeks New Cancer Treatments
USC News
July 2010
Magicians don’t typically give keynote speeches at medical conferences, but then again, the first Physical Sciences in Oncology Center Symposium on June 18 was no typical meeting.
“We’re taking a different approach to cancer here,” said David Agus, senior scientific investigator on the grant from the National Cancer Institute that funded the center and the symposium. [Read more]
Rethinking cancer
Physics World
June 2010
Cancer touches almost everyone in some way. It is now nearly 40 years since US President Richard Nixon declared a scientific “war on cancer”, but while many other major killers like heart disease and pneumonia have shown dramatic improvements and spectacular advances in treatment, the mortality and morbidity rates for most cancers have remained almost unchanged (figure 1). [Read more]
Damania Receives PS-OC Young Investigators' Award
Northwestern Research Newsletter
June 2010
Although the Northwestern University Physical Sciences-Oncology Center (PS-OC) was established only last fall, Dhwanil Damania, a PhD student in biomedical engineering, believes his experience as an NU PS-OC trainee has already had a significant impact on his research skills. [Read more]
Physicists invited to apply their insights to cancer
Physics Today
May 2010
Can physicists help get cancer research out of a rut? That's what the National Cancer Institute is betting on with the roughly $150 million it's spending over five years on a network of 12 centers, each a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary collaboration led by a physical scientist. [Read more]
Shedding New Light on the Fundamental Nature of Cancer
Reproduced with permission from CenterPiece, Spring 2010, Vol. 9, No. 2.
C2010 Northwestern University Office for Research
Within every one of the estimated 50 trillion to 100 trillion cells of the human body are 6 meters (6.6 yards) of DNA. These cells are not 6 meters long, as we all know; one cell, for example, might be 6 microns long (one millionth of 6 meters). The underlying mechanical and biological mechanisms of both normal healthy cells and potentially cancerous cells that make it possible for the human body to stuff that much DNA into such a tiny space are subjects for the basic research now being done at Northwestern’s Physical Sciences and Oncology Center (PS-OC). [Read more]
Gregg Semenza named Canada Gairdner Award winner
The JHU Gazette
April 2010
Gregg Semenza, director of the Vascular Biology program at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering and a member of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, is one of seven recipients of the 2010 Canada Gairdner Awards.
NIH Recruits Physicists to Battle Cancer
APS News
March 2010
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is investing millions of dollars in a collaborative network of 12 Physical Science-Oncology Centers that will provide new insight into the war on cancer. The novel combatants? Physicists. [Read more]
New Center Uses Mathematical Models to Understand Cancer
Memorial Sloan-KetteringCancer Center News
February 2010
People don't usually think of math when considering weapons in the anticancer arsenal. But a new grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) allows Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center scientists to use mathematical modeling to clarify how cells accumulate mutations, give rise to tumors, and respond to therapies. [Read more]
