Multiscale computational modelling and analysis for cancer invasion: exploring the role of matrix-degrading enzymes and adhesion in tumour progression (Keynote Speaker Talk)

Most processes in biology and medicine occur over different but inter-connected spatial and temporal scales – from genes to cells to tissues to organs to populations. Known as one of the “hallmarks of cancer”, cancer invasion is a complex “multi-scale” phenomenon involving many inter-related genetic, biochemical and cellular processes at many different spatial and temporal scale that play a crucial role in the overall cancer development. The ability of cancer cells to break out of tissue compartments and to locally spread and invade the surrounding tissue gives solid tumours a defining deadly characteristic and is a crucial step in the process of metastasis.
The process of invasion consists of cancer cells secreting various matrix-degrading enzymes, which degrade the surrounding tissue or extracellular matrix. Through a combination of proliferation and migration, the cancer cells then actively spread locally into the surrounding tissue. Thus processes occurring at the level of individual cells eventually give rise to processes occurring at the tissue level.
As these multiscale phenomena lead naturally to a question concerning the establishment of a fundamental framework that would enable a rigorous analysis and modelling of cancer invasion, in this talk we will first present a novel multiscale modelling framework involving two scales - cell and tissue. This will be accompanied by a short description of a novel theoretical multiscale framework, based on the new concept of “three-scale convergence” that we have recently introduced, which enables a rigorous analytical investigation of this novel multiscale modelling. We will then present computational simulation results of our multiscale moving boundary model and finally discuss a number of important fundamental properties that follow.