Skip to main content
Center for the Convergence of cancer, physics image panel, biodesign

Arizona Cancer Evolution Center

Despite decades of research, cancer remains a major killer worldwide. So could progress in understanding and controlling malignancy be made by scientists from outside the established cancer research community? This fresh approach was behind the founding of the Arizona Cancer Evolution Center at ASU – one of only 12 physical sciences-oncology centers nationwide established by the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute. Each center is committed to using insights from the physical sciences and engineering to bring a radical new approach to cancer research with the goal of developing new methods of arresting tumor growth and combating metastasis.

ASU's center uses evolutionary and ecological models to study the ways in which cancer has constrained the life strategies and development of species, especially humans, and to reveal the nature and function of cancer suppression mechanisms.

The research is complemented by an outreach program that includes public lectures and debates, seminars for scientists and oncologists, internships, online tutorial videos and visits to schools.

More information

Bioscience

Brain and Behavior

Natural Sciences