Speaker
Description
Resource competition within the tumour microenvironment is a key driver of cancer progression. In this talk, we present a non-local mathematical model to investigate how interactions between M1/M2 macrophages and tumour cells influence tissue invasion.
We demonstrate that the existence and stability of tumour-free versus tumour-present steady states are strictly governed by these competition mechanisms. Furthermore, we show that the minimum invasion speed (a proxy for tumour aggressiveness) is explicitly linked to resource competition coefficients.
We conclude by presenting the simulated spatial distribution of macrophages across different tumour regions. Our results highlight the critical need for more spatio-temporal biological data to further refine our understanding of the dual role played by the immune system in cancer spreading.
