Session 1B — Lectures by Fellows/Associates

Umesh Waghmare, JNCASR, Bengaluru

Computational systems biology of reversible cell-state switching during cancer metastasis View Presentation

Cancer metastasis causes over 90% of cancer-related deaths and is clinically insuperable. Despite extensive ongoing efforts, no unique genomic or mutational signature has emerged for metastasis. Instead, the ability of genetically identical cells to adapt reversibly by exhibiting multiple phenotypes and switching reversibly among them - phenotypic plasticity - is proposed as a hallmark of metastasis. This talk will highlight how mathematical modeling approaches, in an iterative interaction with experimental and clinical data, can better understand how metastasizing cells switch back and forth among multiple phenotypes to maintain their ‘fitness’ and how such interdisciplinary platforms can help identify accelerators of metastasis that can be clinically targeted.