The Department of Applied Mathematics is pleased to host this series of colloquium lectures, funded in part by a generous gift from the Boeing Company. This series will bring to campus prominent applied mathematicians from around the world.
Speaker: Trachette Jackson, University of Michigan
Date: April 27, 2017, 4pm, reception to follow
Location: (SMI 120)
Title: Turning Cancer Discoveries into Effective Targeted Treatments with the Aid of Mathematical Modeling
Abstract: As a group of genetic diseases, cancer presents some of the most challenging problems for basic scientists, clinical investigators, and practitioners. A critical challenge of experimental therapeutics for cancer is to decide which drugs are the best candidates for clinical trials. In order to design novel treatments that are able to effectively and selectively target pathways involved in tumorigenesis, it becoming increasingly necessary to make use of cross-disciplinary, systems science approaches, in which innovative theoretical and computational cancer models play a central role. The goal of this talk is to demonstrate how combining mathematical modeling, numerical simulation, and carefully designed experiments can provide a predictive framework for better understanding tumor development and for improving cancer treatment. In particular, mathematical models designed to predict the effect of novel anti-cancer therapies aimed at biomolecular and biomechanical events associated with vascular tumor growth will be presented and recent advances will be highlighted.