Rick Durrett
Duke University
Heterogeneity in the Spatial Moran Model and the Cancer Field Effect
[When and where]
In this model, individuals of type i have fitness (1+s)^i and mutations from type i-1 to type i at rate u_i. Motivated by cancer progression, the first thing we will discuss is the time to the occurrence of the first type 2 family that does not die out. The answer depends in an intricate way on the mutation rates and selection coefficients. The proofs of these results allow us to quantify tumor heterogeneity, which can be a serious obstacle to treatment. This in turn sheds light on the ‘field effect in cancer,’ the observation made by Slaughter in the 1950s that a malignancy is often surrounded by normal cells that have undergone a premalignant transformation. This work has been done with Jasmine Foo and Kevin Leder at University of Minnesota, and Marc Ryser a postdoc at Duke.
Invited talk Mini-symposium 11
Updated May 13, 2015, by Minus