Mathematical Biology

Tumor Composition and the Host Environment on Cancer Treatment Strategies The one-size-fits-all approach is not effective at treating cancer and tumor heterogeneity plays an important role in patient response. Current dogma characterizes tumor heterogeneity resulting from compounding genetic and epigenetic changes and instability, ultimately driving unfavorable outcomes for these patients. However, some cancers, including many …

Estimating the Long-term Behavior of Biologically Inspired Agent-based Models An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational model in which the local interactions of autonomous agents with each other and with their environment give rise to global properties within a given domain. The use of ABMs in biology has become widespread over the last few years …

Challenges and Opportunities for Translational Research: The Power of Data Integration With increased regulatory burden and high expectations from prescribers and patients, it is no longer cost- nor time-effective to tackle all open questions experimentally. As a result, an increasing number of decisions is informed by modeling and simulation approaches, which integrate all available knowledge …

Optimizing Biofilm Removal Bacterial biofilms are consortia of bacteria enmeshed in a self-produced polymer network. Biofilms occur in a wide variety of settings and impact health, water quality, manufacturing, and other fundamental aspects of modern life. This talk will cover several aspects of biofilms that are fundamental in order to remove biofilms when they have …

Mathematical modeling of diabetes Diabetes is the leading endocrine disease affecting socioeconomic development and has multiple pathogenic pathways. Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is the most common type of diabetes primarily caused by obesity and a lack of exercise. Secondary diabetes is a subtype of diabetes including glucose metabolism disorders correlated with various hormonal diseases. Mathematical …

Modeling of Drosophila Egg Chamber: Chemical Distribution, Force Balance, and Clustered Cell Migration The Drosophila melanogaster egg chamber provides an accessible biological model for clustered cell dynamics in development, metastasis, and even wound healing. Our modeling covers various stages of egg chamber development from chemical signals initiating a cell fate decision in becoming motile to …

Dynamics of a linearly-perturbed May-Leonard competition model The May-Leonard model was introduced to examine the behavior of three competing populations where rich dynamics, such as limit cycles and nonperiodic cyclic solutions, arise. In this talk, we will discuss an extended May-Leonard model, where the system is perturbed by adding the capability of global mutations, allowing …

Optimization of Immunotherapy Treatment Regimen for Glioblastoma The most common and aggressive primary brain cancer, Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), exhibits a highly immune-suppressed tumor microenvironment. Monotherapy with anti-PD-1—a common immunotherapy which targets the PD-L1/PD-1 axis—has proved to be unsuccessful likely due to added layers of immune suppression. Murine experiments show that CCR2+ myeloid cells are chemo-kinetically …

Immunotherapy: Using math to help the immune system fight cancer In recent years, immunotherapy has been taking a central role in cancer therapies. In this talk we will provide an overview of some of our recent works in mathematical modeling of immunotherapy. Among the topics we will discuss are engineered T cell therapy, transforming growth …