We are currently in an era of multi-omics and big data – including real-world data from patients that is driving a vision of precision oncology. In our last Insights Forum, we concluded that although some patients benefit, precision oncology remains vision vs. reality. Cancer is complex. It is a complex adaptive system, but is it irreducibly complex? Is our long 50-year odyssey to fundamentally understand cancer an unattainable goal? Will the current paradigm of identifying and studying the “parts of cancer” lead to this fundamental understanding we seek - and revolutionize the field? How much data is enough data – is more information always helpful in the context of a complex system?
It could be argued that aspects of physics and mathematics, cancer evolution, and the application of theory to convert data to usable information should be in the mainstream of cancer research. Are these key missing pieces - including how we might use current data and information more effectively – and are there others?