Dr. Bob Gatenby Moffitt Cancer Center, USA

Dr. Gatenby received a B.S.E. in Bioengineering and Mechanical Sciences from Princeton University and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency in radiology at the University of Pennsylvania where he also served as chief resident. Dr. Gatenby remains an active clinical radiologist specializing in body imaging.... read moreWhile working at the Fox Chase Cancer Center after residency, he perceived that cancer biology and oncology were awash in data but lacked coherent frameworks of understanding to organize this information and integrate new results. Reaching back to his training in engineering and physical sciences, he recognized that cancer was a complex dynamic system (similar, for example, to weather) and that understanding the often non-linear interactions that govern such systems requires mathematical models and computer simulations. As a result, most of his subsequent research has focused on exploring mathematical methods to understand the first principles and key parameters that govern cancer biology and treatment.

In 2008, Dr. Gatenby joined Moffitt as chair of radiology and convinced the leadership to add a group of mathematicians to the faculty and form the Integrated Mathematical Oncology (IMO) department. Now numbering 8 faculty mathematicians and over 20 post docs and grad students, the IMO has catalyzed formation of several disease-oriented teams of oncologists, surgeons, pathologists, radiologists, mathematicians, physicists, cancer biologists, imaging scientists and evolutionary biologists. These multidisciplinary groups are investigating virtually every aspect of cancer biology and therapy. In fact, IMO members are co-PIs of two ongoing clinical trials that use evolutionary dynamics and computational models to guide therapy. There is no other cancer center in the world that has so completely integrated mathematical modeling and computer simulations into basic science and clinical research.