Guest Editors: Christina Curtis and Florian Markowetz
Genomic research has helped us realize that cancer cells are dynamic populations that respond to different cues. Cancer cells can be viewed as diverse individuals, similar to humans within a population, with both intra-tumor heterogeneity and inter-tumor heterogeneity. One population can change to another over time, they evolve and migrate along with the changes of their microenvironment, with or without therapies. These changes happen gradually and understanding this dynamic process is helping us to manage cancer as a chronic disease. Genome Biology has launched the special issue on Cancer Evolution and Metastasis to showcase the recent efforts in understanding the mechanisms driving cancer evolution, heterogeneity, and metastasis.