The EACR Goodbye Flat Biology conference will focus on cancer models that span in vitro investigations to in vivo cancer biology. Emerging topics include how the extracellular matrix controls cell architecture, mechanobiology, the immune response, and how cell fate transitions underpin tissue morphogenesis and the metastatic cascade. 

A tumour is a complex ecosystem involving multiple cell types, including stromal, immune, vascular, lymphatic, neuronal and epithelial cells. This complexity cannot be modelled completely using conventional 2D monocultures of tumour cells. This meeting will cover cutting-edge, multidisciplinary efforts to create models that mimic the complexity of tissue formation, tissue homeostasis, and the dysregulation of these processes during cancer. The programme includes a wide range of approaches to understand how targeting tissue dynamics may provide therapeutic intervention into cancer progression. 

This edition of the conference will seek to emphasise how targeting the mechanisms that control assembly into tissues, including the interactions with multiple epithelial cell types and the immune system, affects cancer progression and treatment response.