Mathematical Biology

Cell packing in the notochord: morphometry, pattern, and forces The notochord, the defining feature of chordates, is a pressurized tube which actuates elongation of the chordate embryo. The zebrafish notochord consists of large vacuolated cells surrounded by a thin sheath. We characterized the patterns of the cells’ packing, and their relationship to the known regular …

Understanding Microvascular Growth through Experimental and Computational Modelling Understanding microvascular growth, similar to other physiological processes, requires identifying multiple cell, system, and environmental interactions. A challenge is identifying such dynamics when you cannot observe them using traditional experimental approaches. This presentation will highlight the impact of novel tissue engineering motivated and computational models on understanding …

Models of Vimentin Organization Under Actin-Driven Transport Intermediate filaments form an essential structural network, spread throughout the cytoplasm, and play a key role in cell mechanics, intracellular organization and molecular signaling. The maintenance of the network and its adaptation to the cell's dynamic behavior relies on several mechanisms implicating cytoskeletal crosstalk which are not fully …

Rich and realistic dynamics of resource quality based population models All organisms are composed of multiple chemical elements such as nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and carbon (C). P is essential to build nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and N is needed for protein production. To keep track of the mismatch between P requirement in the …

Integrative disease-drug-trial platform for Parkinson’s disease Despite the wide research on Parkinson’s disease (PD), current knowledge on how to link pathophysiological changes and clinical symptoms is still minimal. We are developing an integrative disease-drug-trial platform using different analysis approaches that serves as a quantitative link between (potential) biomarkers of disease progression and clinical scores. This …

Modeling Resistance in Oncolytic Viral Therapy Drug resistance is a common phenomenon in the treatment of cancer. As with other cancer therapies, treatment failure due to resistance also occurs for the oncolytic viral therapy (OVT). In this talk, we introduce a simple deterministic model of tumor-virus interaction to investigate OVT resistance. The free oncolytic viruses …

Structural and practical identifiability analysis of a multiscale immuno-epidemiological model We perform the identifiability analysis of a multiscale model of seasonal influenza with multiscale data. We show that the well studied target cell limited within-host model is not structurally identifiable. So, we reformulate the model and work with a scaled within-host model which is structurally …

Collective Cell Behavior in 3D Cell Assemblies—3D Printed Structures, Random Aggregates, and Perfectly Precise Arrays The remarkable differences between cells grown on plates and cells in vivo or 3D culture are well-known. At the physical level, cell shape, structure, motion, and mechanical behavior in 3D are totally different from those in the dish and are …