Tackling the Evolutionary Cancer Puzzle
by Joe Lennerz
There are so many unsolved puzzles in Cancer. One of these puzzles is the evolutionary history of human cancer. While in general terms, evolution is the change of heritable characteristics of biological populations over generations - here the terms are applied to tumor evolution. The study of tumor evolution requires participation from a wide array of disciplines.
Pathologists, geneticists and theoreticians have to come together to identify and review suitable specimens, perform experiments, analyze data and interpret results.
That's why we started the "Tumor Phylogenetics Consortium" - or TPC. The TPC is meant to provide a platform for these efforts.
But what are the concrete questions?
Timing. One of the key questions is whether metastasis occurs early or late in tumor evolution. This is relevant because it indirectly tackles the dynamic of the of metastasis - an arguably important clinical question.
Randomness. Here we approach the question of whether seeding of metastasis is a random process or whether metastasis is driven by specialized clones?
Diversity. Similar to any population (of cells or human for that matter), cancer is a heterogeneous beast. What remains currently unclear is how much genetic diversity exists between and within metastases? Yes. One would assume that a lot of researchers have clarified this. While some progress has been made - simple tools to assess the degree of similarity are currently missing. You may ask - why is that relevant? ... and the answer is relatively simple: we believe that the measurement of diversity may be able to teach us something about the seeding mechanisms?
Outcomes. We also aim to tackle outcomes. This is probably the most ambitious question - because it will require contributions from many different sites to achieve numbers. Why? Well, studying evolutionary processes requires extremely diligent work within and across patients. We aim to answer whether the evolutionary history of a (metastatic) cancer actually correlates with clinical behavior and patient survival?
If this sounds relevant to you - please feel free to share this link, spread the word, and feel free to contact us.
https://tumorphylogenetics.org/
