Douglas Hanahan: The daunting complexity of cancer: understanding the battlefield is a step towards winning the war

About

The Inaugural Grace-CERN Lecture

The daunting complexity of cancer: understanding the battlefield is a step towards winning the war

Douglas Hanahan, Ph.D.

Director, Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC)

Professor of Molecular Oncology, School of Life Sciences,

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)

Vice Director, Swiss Cancer Center Lausanne

Synopsis (version francaise ci-dessous)

Cancer is a disease with hundreds of variations, both in affected organs and in responses to different therapies. Modern human cancer research is producing an avalanche of data about the distinctive genetic aberrations of its specific types, further accentuating the diversity and vast complexity of the disease. There is hope that elucidating its mechanisms will lead to more informed and more effective therapeutic strategies. Understanding the enemy is paramount, and yet tumors arising in different organs can be so different as to defy their integration into an informed vision. Are there common principles underlying this daunting complexity? One hypothesis, to be discussed, is that most symptomatic forms of human cancer necessarily acquire a similar set of capabilities. The proposition is that appreciation of these so-called hallmarks of cancer can help integrate its complexity into a clearer understanding of the battlefields of cancer. This over-arching battle space perspective may lead to new therapeutic strategies aimed at multi-targeting the hallmarks of cancer.

Le séminaire est en anglais avec interprétation simultanée en français

La complexité déconcertante du cancer:

Comprendre les règles du champ de bataille est déjà un pas vers la victoire