Main description:

The study of the biology of tumours has grown to become markedly interdisciplinary, involving chemists, statisticians, epidemiologists, mathematicians, bioinformaticians, and computer scientists alongside biologists, geneticists, and clinicians. The Oxford Textbook of Cancer Biology brings together the most up-to-date developments from different branches of research into one coherent volume, providing a comprehensive and current account of this rapidly
evolving field.

Structured in eight sections, the book starts with a review of the development and biology of multi-cellular organisms, how they maintain a healthy homeostasis in an individual, and a description of the molecular basis of cancer development. The book then illustrates, as once cells become neoplastic, their signalling network is altered and pathological behaviour follows. It explores the changes that cancer cells can induce in nearby normal tissue, the new relationship established between them
and the stroma, and the interaction between the immune system and tumour growth. The authors illustrate the contribution provided by high throughput techniques to map cancer at different levels, from genomic sequencing to cellular metabolic functions, and how information technology, with its vast
amounts of data, is integrated with traditional cell biology to provide a global view of the disease. The effect of the different types of treatments on the biology of the neoplastic cells are explored to understand on the one side, why some treatments succeed, and on the other, how they can affect the biology of resistant and recurrent disease. The book concludes by summarizing what we know to date about cancer, and in what direction our understanding of cancer is moving.

Edited by leading authorities in the field with an international team of contributors, this book is an essential resource for scholars and professionals working in the wide variety of sub-disciplines that make up today's cancer research and treatment community. It is written not only for consultation, but also for easy cover-to-cover reading.

Contents:

Section 1: The multicellular organism
1: Francesco Pezzella, David Kerr, and Mahvash Tavassoli: The multicellular organism and cancer
2: Giacomo Buscemi: DNA repair and genome integrity
3: Tom Donnem and Francesco Pezzella: Evolution and cancer
Section 2: The etiology of cancer
4: Mark A. Glaire and David N. Church: Genetics and genetic instability in cancer
5: Edward Hookway, Nicholas Athanasou, and Udo Oppermann: Epigenetics
6: Dirk P. Dittmer and Blossom Damania: Viral carcinogenesis - an overview
7: David H. Phillips: Chemical carcinogens
8: Yan-Qun Xiang and Chao-Nan Qian: Radiation as a Carcinogen
Section 3: How the cancer cell works
9: Nadege Gaborit and Yosef Yarden: Growth factors and associated signalling pathways in tumour progression and in cancer treatment
10: Balkees Abderrahman and V. Craig Jordan: Hormones and Cancer
11: Mahvash Tavassoli and Francesco Pezzella: Oncogenesis and tumour suppression
12: Jiangting Hu: The signaling pathways in cancer
13: Simon Carr and Nicholas La Thangue: Cell cycle control
14: Jessica Bullenkamp and Mahvash Tavassoli: Cancer and cell death
15: Laura Collopy and Kazunori Tomita: Telomerase and immortalisation
16: Almut Schulze, Karim Bensaad, and Adrian L Harris: Cancer metabolism
17: Andrea Rasola: Chaperones and protein quality control in the neoplastic process
18: Adrian L Harris and Margaret Ashcroft: Oxygen and cancer: the response to hypoxia
19: Andrey Ugolkov and Andrew P. Mazar: Invasion, Metastasis and Tumor Dormancy
20: Connor Sweeney, Lynn Quek, Betty Gration, and Paresh Vyas: Cancer Stem Cells
Section 4: Cancer microenvironment
21: W.E. Mesker and R.A.E.M. Tollenaar: Cancer associated stroma
22: Francesco Pezzella and Robert Kerbel: Blood vessels and cancer
23: Herman Waldmann: Cancer Immunology
Section 5: Global vision of cancer
24: Pieter-Jan van Dam and Steven Van Laere: Molecular profiling in cancer research and personalized medicine
25: Pedro Cutillas and Benedikt M. Kessler: Proteomics and metabolomics applications in cancer biology
26: Lieven Verbeke and Steven Van Laere: Cancer systems biology: from molecular profiles to pathways, signalling networks and therapeutic vulnerabilities
27: Karen Pulford and Kevin Gatter: Cancer biology through immunohistology
Section 6: The biology of cancer treatment
28: David Kerr, Daniel Haller, and Jaap Verweij: Principles of chemotherapy
29: Gwennaelle C. Monnot and Pedro Romero: Immunotherapy and Tumour Resistance to immune mediated control and elimination
30: Anna Dubrovska, Mechthild Krause, and Michael Baumann: Biological effect of radiotherapy on cancer cells
Section 7: Conclusions
31: Francesco Pezzella, Adrian L Harris, and Mahvash Tavassoli: Benign tumours: the forgotten neoplasms
32: David Kerr and Mahvash Tavassoli: Conclusions: cancer biology, a moveable feast