Cancer is a disease that hijacks the body's regulatory systems. When a person is healthy, his or her cells interact fluidly with their immediate environment, responding to a series of biochemical cues in ways that promote the greater good of the organism. In cancer, this system is subverted. The biochemical signals that instruct cells to divide or migrate, for instance, are often locked on, while signals that could prevent them from taking these steps may be fixed in the off position. By coupling computational modeling with experimentation, University of Virginia associate professor of chemical engineering Matthew Lazzara is attempting to unravel the cell signaling systems associated with two particularly deadly forms of cancer — brain and pancreatic. His ultimate goal is to identify the combination of factors that lead these networks to go awry and develop strategies to correct them. “The essence of chemical engineering is to describe chemical (or in this case biochemical) systems mathematically,†Lazzara said. “We are using that engineer's skill to devise better approaches to treat cancer by describing complex biology quantitatively with the ultimate hope of manipulating it.â€