CancerSim was the last meeting of the Marie Curie Research Network established to put together mathematical oncologists in Europe. Since many of the network organisers are in Turin the meeting took place in Turin. As you can see in the photo
Turin is a very pretty city full of history, friendly people, great food, wine and coffee….and some times not as sunny as one would expect Italy to be when traveling from Scotland.
The programe of the conference was the usual in these meetings, with many mathematicians (with different degrees of bio attached to their research) and some biologists (with also different degrees of interest in mathematical/computational formalizations).
Asides from the separation between mathematicians and biologists (that I’d say this network helped to bridge somewhat) there was also the gap between young and established researchers. Young researcher meaning, of course, those of us with temporal contracts. But this is not a critic, one good thing about the network was the amount of traveling, exchanges and long stays between the different groups that make the network.
It is difficult to explain but all this frantic traveling allowed us to get an overview of what is there in terms of mathematical/theoretical oncology in Europe. It also started many collaborations, especially between the young researchers (which I think is much easier in theoretical fields than in experimental ones since often times you need little more than a laptop, a notebook and a pen).
I wonder if they have similar programes in the US (or other parts of the world), seems to me that any government interested in science would have not that many other investment opportunities that would give the same bang for the euro.
Credits : Cancerevo: Evolution and cancer (David Basanta)
