Evolutionary game theory in cancer

Evolutionary game theory, developed for animal behaviour, models interactions between cell types whose fitness depends on the frequency of the others: producers and free-riders of growth factors, invasive and proliferative phenotypes, sensitive and resistant clones. David Basanta, Alexander Anderson and others applied it to glioma, prostate and lung cancer, and it provides the theoretical backbone for adaptive therapy and for 'evolutionary steering', in which a first treatment is chosen to make the tumour vulnerable to a second. Game assays that measure fitness interactions in co-culture have begun to supply real parameters.