Cancer Behavior: An Optimal Control Approach

With special attention to cancer, this essay explains how the Optimal Control Theory, mainly used in economics, can be applied to the analysis of biological behaviours and illustrates the ability of this mathematical branch to describe biological phenomena and biological interrelationships. Two examples are provided to show the capability and versatility of this powerful mathematical approach in the study of biological questions. The first example describes a process of organogenesis and the second, the development of tumours.