Commentary

Advocacy spurs innovation: promoting synergy between physical and biomedical sciences

¹ Bay Area Physical Sciences-Oncology Center, Berkeley, CA, USA
² Breast SPORE Advocacy Core (BSAC), Breast Oncology Program, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
³ Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, CA, USA
⁴ Department of Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
⁵ Center for Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
⁶ PS-OC, Office of Physical Sciences-Oncology, National Cancer Institute (NCI), Bethesda, MD, USA
⁷ Departments of Anatomy and Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, and Member, Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
⁸ Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education, Bay Area PS-OC Educational and Outreach, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
⁹ Bay Area Physical Sciences Oncology Center (PS-OC), Breast Oncology Program, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCSF, Box 1710, San Francisco, CA, 94143-1710, USA
¹⁰ Department of Surgery, UCSF, Center for Bioengineering & Tissue Regeneration, Bay Area PS-OC, 513 Parnassus Avenue, room HSE560, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0456, USA
¹¹ Office of Advocacy Relations, National Cancer Institute, Office of Physical Sciences/Oncology National Cancer Institute, NCI Office of Physical Sciences-Oncology (PS-OC), Building 31, Room 10A03, 31 Center Drive, MSC 2580, Bethesda, MD, 20892-2580, USA
¹² Departments of Surgery, Anatomy & Bioengineering & Therapeutics, UCSF, Director, Center for Bioengineering & Tissue Regeneration, 513 Parnassus Avenue, room HSE560, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0456, USA
¹³ Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education, Lead, Bay Area PS-OC Educational and Outreach, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCSFm, Box 1710, San Francisco, CA, 94143-1710, USA

^* e-mail: ssamson@pacbell.net

Received: 4 February 2013
Accepted: 9 May 2013
Published online: 9 May 2013

Abstract

Despite dramatic advances in decoding the genes, proteins, and pathways that drive cancer, the disease has evaded the reductionist approaches to defeat it. Recent work has highlighted cancer’s heterogeneity, complexity, and ability to develop resistance as major barriers to progress. To better understand and control the processes that govern the initiation, behavior, and progression of cancer, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) created the Physical Sciences-Oncology Center (PS-OC) Network in 2009. As a hub for scientific innovation and as an example of the transdisciplinary research model, the twelve centers within the PS-OC strive for the systematic convergence of the physical sciences with cancer biology. Promoting collaboration between biologists, physicists, mathematicians, chemists, biomedical engineers, and oncologists, the program offers a compelling vision of how new frontiers in physical sciences and oncology will permit the emergence of new scientific principles and opportunities, and of how the benefits of the current convergence revolution would be enhanced by vigorous public/advocacy support.