Physics of Cancer, Claudia Tanja Mierke, IOP Publishing, 2015. $150.00 (449 pp.). ISBN 978-0-7503-1135-9 Buy at Amazon
Studies on the physical science of cancer are rapidly increasing, but few, if any, scholarly books exist that summarize the field and inspire current and future practitioners. To that end, Claudia Tanja Mierke’s Physics of Cancer provides a wide-ranging introduction to the application of modern biophysical concepts to cancer research. It is appropriate for readers who study either physics or cancer biology; my graduate student Charlotte Pfeifer and my postdoc Jerome Irianto, both of whom helped me assess this book, fit the bill. Another recently released book that comes close to summarizing the field, and that covers a wider range of topics, is Bernard Gerstman’s Research on the Physics of Cancer: A Global Perspective (World Scientific, 2016).
A physics professor at the University of Leipzig in Germany, Mierke has been working in the field since the early 2000s; her focus is on the migration of cancer cells in relation to their microenvironment, including neighboring cells. Physics of Cancer clearly draws on her experience: She has authored many research articles and review papers and some book chapters. In addition to providing up-to-date insights on cancer-cell migration, the book’s first section provides a broad overview that readers unfamiliar with cancer science or biophysics could appreciate.
In many places, the author skillfully connects biophysical concepts, such as adhesion forces, to cancer. For example, in her discussion of the extracellular matrix under tissue-aging conditions, Mierke does a fine job of relating elevated and inappropriate collagen cross-linking to cancer and other aging-related diseases. As we know from basic polymer physics, crosslinking of any polymer gel will increase its stiffness. More cross-linked collagen equates to stiffer tissues; cells—including malignant ones—attach and crawl better on stiff, adherent things. The biophysics of such processes and its relation to cancer invasion are certainly timely topics.
However, the physical connection is obscure in a couple of key places. For example, Mierke could add a better explanation of how the nucleus inhibits migration and, therefore, how it acts in some ways as a tumor suppressor. Going beyond the biology literature, the author speculates on the physics of changes in lamin levels, a phenomenon observed in cancer patients. Lamin is a meshwork of intracellular structural proteins that surround DNA, including mutated DNA. But the physical underpinnings of that process could have been made more explicitly.
A second edition of this book might be optimized with the addition of a concluding chapter and more figures and diagrams to guide readers. Although the present edition features standalone chapters, which is a virtue for a text of its nature, they are not organized in the most natural sequence. For example, chapters 3 and 5 both address experimental techniques; a more logical sequence would put them next to each other following chapter 1, since they provide a foundation for much of the data reported throughout the text.
The handful of figures that appear in the book are simple, straightforward, and effective. But some places that seem to need figures do not have them. For instance, although the text has a discussion of the jamming phase diagram, it has no illustration. That said, the text’s exhaustive citations allow readers to look up original figures.
A modicum of patience is needed because some terms or concepts are introduced and referenced well before a detailed explanation is provided. For example, a discussion of collagen in chapter 8 proceeds for dozens of pages before an adequate primer on the protein is presented. Also, the ratio γ/β is introduced well before the definitions of γ or β, which, respectively, relate to adhesion energy and aggregate surface tension. And although some equations are confusing or need correction, such issues, for this relatively thick first edition, are remarkably few.
The book’s readability is enviable, but a few editing oversights are strewn throughout. Reading flow stalls from overuse of such transitions as “in detail,” “taken together,” and “in line with this.” Chapter overviews would be more engaging if such passive constructions as “In particular, the classical differential adhesion hypothesis is presented and its applicability to experimental results is proved” were rendered in an active voice. The pronoun “this” is used ambiguously at times. Some sentences run on. And minor typos are a bit distracting.
Overall, the content in Physics of Cancer is up-to-date, interesting, and highly relevant. The above comments notwithstanding, it is a valuable contribution to the nascent literature on the physical sciences in oncology.
Dennis E. Discher, a biophysicist and soft-matter physicist, is director of the Physical Sciences–Oncology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the university’s Robert D. Bent Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
