In the centenary year of the publication of a seminal treatise on the physical and mathematical principles underpinning nature – On Growth and Form by D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson – a Cambridge physicist has led a study describing an elegantly simple solution to a puzzle that has taxed biologists for centuries: how complex branching patterns of tissues arise.
Scientists have identified for the first time the ‘cell of origin’ – in other words, the first cell from which the cancer grows – in basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer, and followed the chain of events that lead to the growth of these invasive tumours.
Four Cambridge scientists have been recognised by the Royal Society for their achievements in research.
Looking at stem cells through physicists’ eyes is challenging some of our basic assumptions about the body’s master cells.
Study has relevance to all cancers that are suspected to have a stem cell origin
A shake of the dice and a nod from the neighbour – new facets of stem cell biology uncovered when methods in theoretical physics were used to solve a biological problem.
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