The Center

The Bay Area Physical Sciences-Oncology Center is a collaboration among several universities and other research organizations, including UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the California Institute of Quantitative Biosciences.

The center is one of 12 nationally, funded by an NCI initiative to bring new perspectives to the mechanisms and treatment of cancer. Broadly, this "Physical-Sciences Oncology Initiative" focus on physical laws and principles of cancer; evolution and evolutionary theory of cancer; information coding, decoding, transfer and translation in cancer; and ways to de-convolute cancer's complexity.

In our center, scientists from across the physical sciences, including chemists, engineers, physicists and mathematicians, work side-by-side with experienced biologists and oncologists. Together, these teams apply the tools and insights of the physical sciences to oncology.

The NCI PS-OC Initiative

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is exploring new and innovative approaches to better understand and control cancer. For the first time, this overall effort includes a systematic convergence of the physical sciences with cancer biology. By partnering with scientists from various non-biology disciplines, NCI envisions novel approaches to help generate answers to some of the major questions and barriers in cancer research.

NCI's initial goal is to join these often disparate areas of science by building a collaborative network that is composed of Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers (PS-OCs). Working in cross-disciplinary teams, the PS-OCs explore the physical laws and principles that shape and govern the emergence and behavior of cancer at all scales, in an effort to open new areas and support the development of clinical advances. More information can be found at the NCI Physical Sciences-Oncology site.

News: Call for Pilot Projects

We have released a call for pilot projects. The objective of the pilot program is to address outstanding research needs and to recruit new talent to the field of cancer mechanics from across the physical and medical sciences emergence and behavior of cancer at all scales, in an effort to open new areas and support the development of clinical advances. More information can be found in the detailed "Call for Pilot Projects".

Annual site visit: 2011 details

Our 2011 annual site visit will be at UC Berkeley on August 22. Please register HERE. See you on the 22nd!