Eshel Ben-Jacob is taking cues from the collective intelligence of bacteria to learn how to interrupt communication between cancer cells. The physicist tells Madhumita Venkataramanan how this strategy could even turn the disease against itself
As a physicist, why are you studying cancer?
I study pattern formation in natural systems and have been promoting the idea of bacterial collective intelligence for three decades now. That began because, philosophically, I wanted to find the special difference between a non-living particle and a single-celled organism. And what I found is that these organisms can sense the environment, measure it, process information and use stored data to make a decision. They behave as a community.
I had been working on this for 20 years when I learned of alarming discoveries about cancer. It dawned on me that like bacteria, cancer behaves as a networked society of smart cells. To my delight, I realised ...
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