Most Tumors in Snakes are Cancerous
This study, A Multi-Institutional Collaboration to Understand Neoplasia, Treatment and Survival of Snakes, is just published in the journal Animals (January 21 2022). Although snakes seem to have more tumors than other species of reptiles studied, nothing much is...
Why Some Species of Animals Get More Cancer Than Others – Exciting new paper!
Writing in the journal Nature in a paper titled Cancer Risk Across Mammals, ACE researchers and their collaborators discuss why cancer rates are higher in some species than others. It seems to have a lot to do with diet, with meat eaters having more cancer than...
Congratulations to Daniel Chavez!
Daniel is a post-doctoral researcher with ACE and he has just won a Carol and Jim Patton Award for Outstanding Latin American Graduate Student of Mammalogy Award from the American Society of Mammologists! Well done Daniel!
Spatial Structure Governs the Mode of Tumour Evolution
Knowing how tumors evolve would be very useful to clinicians trying to predict the spread of cancer and the likely success of different therapies. New mathematical models developed by Robert Noble and his colleagues should help. In this major research paper...
Interesting Summer School
After a two year break, the 2022 Guarda summer school in Evolutionary Biology for master and PhD students. The main aim of the course is to develop the skills to produce an independent research project in evolutionary biology.The summer school will take place 18. –...
Cancer and Embryo Development Workshop, 17-18 January 2020, Tempe
It has been known for some decades that there is a deep link between tumorigenesis and embryo development. Many of the hallmarks of cancer are also hallmarks of early-stage development: angiogenesis, hypoxia, cell motility, tissue invasion, stemness. It has even been...
Tracing the deep Evolutionary Roots of Cancer workshop
Mon-Wed, April 23-25, 2018 Scottsdale. Cancer represents a breakdown in the regulatory mechanisms that mediate the relationship between individual cells and the organism as a whole, a relationship that dates back to the dawn of multicellularity over a billion years...
Evolutionary Biology and Ecology of Cancer Workshop
Evolutionary biologists and students from around the world gathered in Cambridge, UK for an intensive weeklong workshop in June 2018.
Our Projects
Organismal Evolution and Cancer Defenses
Here we are using Life History Theory to compare cancer rates across species in zoos and wildlife reserves and uncover the selective pressures that reduce cancer defenses in some animals and enhance them in others. Our work will give new clues to cancer avoidance mechanisms that have evolved in the animal kingdom that can be used to prevent and treat cancers in humans.
Somatic Cell Evolution in Small Human Replicative Units
This Project studies somatic cell evolution in human colon crypts and tumor glands to determine whether gene selection or neutral genetic drift is more common during normal human aging and tumor progression. We are also examining the gene functioning of tumor cells in species identified in the Organismal Evolution and Cancer Defenses project (above) to test the predictions of Life History Theory.
This project takes into account both the evolution of cancer cell mutations and the environment surrounding a tumor in order to develop a better predictive test for the invasiveness of a tumor. We will also hope to be able to understand which aspects of a mutation most impact survival and which are most important to target when considering treatment.
We love to talk about our work and explain what we do. One of our research themes concerns the prevalence of cancer throughout the multi-celled world and to illustrate this we have built a cancer cactus garden on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University. Here, the weird and beautiful plant forms illustrate the ubiquity of cancer. Check our progress or visit the garden if you get the chance. We also put on public lectures and seminars – check our events listings – and recordings of past events. If you are a teacher in the Phoenix area and would like a school talk about cancer in animals and plants from our talented team, please contact us. We have been going into lunchtime science clubs in local schools and to full classes to work with children from 5 years up!
