Abstract
If ever an area of scientific endeavour needed new interdisciplinary perspectives, it is cancer research. Despite four decades of massive funding and fundamental breakthroughs in molecular biology, cancer treatment has not on the whole benefited from this effort, and mortality rates for many major types of carcinoma remain stubbornly high. We still have no effective understanding of, nor treatment for, metastatic disease, which is the main cause of death for cancer patients. In this talk I will give my own perspectives on how physical science and engineering can bring new ideas and perspectives to cancer, with emphases on both fundamental understanding and patient outcomes. I will discuss in some detail two projects in my own group in which very simple theoretical ideas are brought to bear on i) rare events underlying metastasis, and ii) topological rules underlying the robustness or otherwise of gene regulatory networks. For those unable to attend: in a nutshell, I will be appealing for a new approach to cancer research in which multiple simultaneous and interconnected lines and modes of inquiry are utilised, rather than a primary reliance on reductionist molecular biology and genomic approaches.