Engler Adam J, Discher Dennis E
Biophysical Engineering Labs, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
APL Bioeng. 2018 Sep 26;2(3):031601. doi: 10.1063/1.5056176. eCollection 2018 Sep.
The physical and engineering sciences have much to offer in understanding, diagnosing, and even treating cancer. Microfluidics, imaging, materials, and diverse measurement devices are all helping to shift paradigms of tumorigenesis and dissemination. Using materials and micro-probes of elasticity, for example, epithelia have been shown to transform into mesenchymal cells when the elasticity of adjacent tissue increases. Approaches common in engineering science enable such discoveries, and further application of such tools and principles will likely improve existing cancer models and also create better models for high throughput analyses . As profiled in this special topic issue composed of more than a dozen manuscripts, opportunities abound for the creativity and analytics of engineering and the physical sciences to make advances in and against cancer.
物理科学和工程科学在癌症的理解、诊断乃至治疗方面都能发挥很大作用。微流体技术、成像技术、材料科学以及各种测量设备都有助于改变肿瘤发生和扩散的模式。例如，利用具有弹性的材料和微探针，研究发现当相邻组织的弹性增加时，上皮细胞会转变为间充质细胞。工程科学中常见的方法促成了此类发现，进一步应用这些工具和原理可能会改进现有的癌症模型，还能创建更适合高通量分析的模型。正如本期专题所收录的十几篇稿件所展示的那样，工程学和物理科学的创造力与分析能力在对抗癌症方面有很多机会取得进展。
