Seminar: What is ... a cancer cell?

In this What is … ? seminar Alexandra Muñoz will explain what a cancer cell is and why it is a unique and intriguing phenomenon.   No scientific background is necessary, and all essential features will be introduced.

The key features of cancer cells will be described in comparison to normal healthy cells.  To describe these features for a math audience, molecular biology and current cutting-edge understandings of cancer will be distilled into a conceptual framework stripped of much biological detail.  The goal will be to generalize about the system in such a way that it will be possible to understand why carcinogenic processes are difficult to treat, unique in every instance, and in need of a generalizing mathematical structure.  All areas of mathematics may be useful in rendering this description.

This lecture is part of the "What is..?" seminar.