- Genomic Data-Guided Mathematical Modeling of Cancer
- Project Year:
2017
- REU Student (s):
Roxanne Casio | Rutgers University-Newark
- Student 1 Institution:
Rutgers University-New Brunswick
- Project Mentor:
Subhajyoti De
- Project Mentor Area:
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey
- Project Abstract:
The margin between cancer survivors and those who receive cancer treatments continues to widen despite modern-day medical efforts. Although there is a great variability
of the effectiveness of a treatment from cancer patient
to the next, within a single patient and a single tumor,which is
composed of thousands of cancerous cells, there is an even
greater level of cellular variability, denoted as intra-tumor
heterogeneity. Intra-tumor heterogeneity arises as time progresses
because cancerous cells continually evolve and acquire
mutations that aid in their own survival. Common techniques
that analyze the composition of a tumor, such as biopsies,
are not accurate measures of a tumor's true composition.
It is possible that these treatments are targeted for only a
small subset of cells, of the same type, within a single tumor
population. By utilizing an open source Java program, it is
possible to observe the growth of all individual subpopulations
of cancerous cells within a single tumor. This code, may be
used with varying parameters that affect tumor growth, would
aid in providing more accurate diagnoses, which might help
to remedy the ineffectiveness of treatments due to intra-tumor
heterogeneity.
