Mathematical Biology Seminar
Friday, January 27, 2017, 10:00am, 205 Physics
Tracy Jackson
Turning Cancer Discoveries into Effective Therapies with the Aid of Mathematical Modeling

Abstract:

Tumor growth and progression is critically dependent on the establishment of a vascular support system. This is often accomplished via the expression of pro-angiogenic growth factors, including members of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family of ligands. VEGF ligands are overexpressed in a wide variety of solid tumors, and therefore inspired optimism that inhibition of the different axes of the VEGF pathway, alone or in combination, would represent powerful anti-angiogenic therapies for most cancer types. When considering treatments that target VEGF and its receptors it difficult to tease out the differential anti-angiogenic and anti-tumor effects of all combinations experimentally because tumor cells and vascular endothelial cells are engaged in a dynamic crosstalk that impacts key aspects of tumorigenesis, independently of angiogenesis. In this talk, I will discuss the development of a mathematical model that connects intracellular signaling responsible for cellular proliferation and death to population level cancer growth. The model will be used investigate the effect of bidirectional communication between endothelial cells and tumor cells on treatments targeting VEGF and its receptors. The results underscore the fact that counterintuitive treatment outcomes can result as a consequence complex cellular dynamics. Further mathematical modeling in this direction has the potential to shed light on the mechanisms behind experimental observations that manipulating VEGF and its receptors is successful in some cases but disappointing in others.

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