Representing Cancer Cell Trajectories in a Phase-Space Diagram: Switching Cellular States by Biological Phase Transitions

Viewing cancer cell populations as trapped in attractors defined by fractal dimensions raises an obvious question previously addressed by Huang and Kaufmann:how can one perturb the malignant cells back to the trajectory that leads to the nonmalignant,more differentiated cell? This will place the old, underexplored, idea of differentiation therapy in a new light. Relevant, preliminary data suggest that such a result could be obtained by both physical as well chemical morphogenetic factors, generally belonging to different embryonic morphogenetic fields