Multiscale computational modelling and analysis of cancer invasion

Recognised as a key stage in cancer growth and spread in the human body, the cancer cell invasion process is crucial for metastatic spread and the subsequent development of secondary cancers. Tissue scale proliferation and migration in conjunction with a pallet of arising cell-scale dynamics including altered adhesion and secretion of matrix degrading enzymes enable the cancer cells to actively spread locally into the surrounding tissue. This biological multiscale character that cancer invasion exhibits therefore explores the natural two-way link between the molecular processes occurring at the level of individual cells (micro-scale) and the processes occurring at the level of cell population (macro-scale). This chapter will address these multiscale biological processes from a mathematical modelling and analysis perspective, gradually paving the way towards an integrated multiscale framework that explores the tight connection between the tissues scale changes in tumour morphology and the cell-scale dynamics of proteolytic enzymes in the neighbourhood of the tumour interface.