Since Nixon announced the war on cancer over 50 years ago, we've revolutionized the world with inventions such as the internet, GPS, and space stations. Our progress on cancer, however, remains relatively dismal. I argue that this may be due to an outdated worldview and that perspectives from ecology and evolutionary biology have the potential to make an outsized impact on modern cancer research. Conversely, cancer serves as an excellent model organism to explore fundamental questions in evolutionary ecology.

In this talk, I will discuss the importance of evolutionary thinking in designing more effective cancer treatment strategies with a particular focus on the role of the polyaneuploid cancer cell state on therapeutic resistance. By the end of the talk, I will have revealed my not-so-secret call to arms to recruit brilliant eco-evolutionary thinkers into cancer research.