Computational and Applied Math Proseminar

Tuesday, April 26, 2005, 1:40 p.m. PSH 132

Katarzyna Anna Rejniak

Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State Univ

From Individual Cells to Complex Tissues: A Cell-Based Model of Growing Tumors

Abstract ost tumors in vivo become highly non-homogeneous even at very early stages of their growth. In order to address different aspects of tumor formation and development on the level of single cells, I propose a two-dimensional time-dependent mathematical model taking explicitly into account individually regulated biomechanical processes of tumor cells and communication between cells and their microenvironment.

A mathematical framework of this model is constituted by the immersed boundary method and couples the dynamics of separate elastic cells with the continuous description of a viscous incompressible cytoplasm inside the cells and the extracellular matrix outside the tissue. Numerical simulations addressing the self-organized formation of tumor microregions and a micro- architecture of ductal carcinomas will be presented and other possible application of this model in cell biomechanics will be discussed.

Though we will illustrate our methodology within the context of HIV infection dynamics, it has relevance to a wide variety of applications with similar mathematical and statistical properties.

For further information please contact: mittelmann@asu.edu