TY - JOUR T1 - Competitive release in tumors JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/263335 SP - 263335 AU - Yongqian Ma AU - Jeffrey West AU - Paul K. Newton Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/02/10/263335.abstract N2 - Competitive release is a bedrock principle of coevolutionary ecology and population dynamics. It is also the main mechanism by which heterogeneous tumors develop chemotherapeutic resistance. Understanding, controlling, and exploiting this important mechanism represents one of the key challenges and potential opportunities of current medical oncology. The development of sophisticated mathematical and computational models of coevolution among clonal and sub-clonal cell populations in the tumor ecosystem can guide us in predicting and shaping various responses to perturbations in the fitness landscape which is altered by chemo-toxic agents. This in turn can help us design adaptive chemotherapeutic strategies to combat the release resistant cells. ER -