Margaux Bieuville

Abstract Many cancer therapies achieve durable control without complete tumor eradication, suggesting that disrupting tumor organization may be more critical than killing cells. We propose that effective treatments converge by destabilizing the tumor’s Group Phenotypic Composition (GPC), the functional and spatial organization of interacting cell populations. When this organization collapses, tumors lose coherence.

1 Introduction Neoplasia, defined as an abnormal tissue growth (malignant or not), is a pathology that appeared at the end of the Precambrian period (about a billion years ago) with the appearance of multicellular organisms (Domazet-Loso and Tautz 2010; Ujvari, Roche, and Thomas 2017). It therefore concerns all metazoans, being present in animals from hydras to whales (Domazet-Lošo et al. 2014; Aktipis et al. 2015; Vincze et al. 2022).