Predictions of tumor morphological stability and evaluation against experimental observations

Speaker: 

Kara Pham

Institution: 

UCI

Time: 

Monday, October 18, 2010 - 5:30pm

Location: 

RH 306

The hallmark of malignant tumors is their invasion of local tissue and infiltration
of distant organs (metastasis). A defining characteristic of aggressive tumors
is an unstable morphology, including invasive fingers and protrusions. Shape
instabilities (growing protrusions) are associated with local invasiveness, also
often a precursor to tumor metastasis. We study tumor morphological stability
by employing three mathematical models to gain insight into tumor invasion
and metastasis. Using linear theory, we study the tumor morphological stability
described by each model and evaluate the consistency between theoretical
model predictions and experimental data from in vitro 3D multicellular tumor
spheroids. We will discuss the results and show that it is feasible to extract parameter
values from a limited set of data and create a self-consistent modeling
framework that can be extended to the multiscale study of cancer. Numerical
methods are used to simulate the nonlinear effects of stress on solid tumor
growth and invasiveness.

Stability predictions of tumor growth and evaluations against experimental observations

Speaker: 

Kara Pham

Institution: 

UC Irvine

Time: 

Wednesday, December 1, 2010 - 4:00pm

Location: 

RH 114

We consider three constitutive relations to describe tumor growth: Darcys law, Stokes law, and the combined Darcy-Stokes law. Darcys law is used to describe fluid flow in a porous medium. Stokes law describes the flow of a viscous fluid. In this talk, we will discuss using linear theories to study tumor shape stability (the ability of the tumor to return to being spherical or exhibit protrusions) described by the three physical relations and to evaluate the consistency between theoretical model predictions and experimental data. The motivation behind this work is that shape instabilities (growing protrusions) are associated with local invasiveness, which is often a precursor to tumor metastasis (infiltration of the distant organs). We will discuss the results and further show that it is feasible to extract parameter values from a limited set of data and create a self-consistent modeling framework that can be extended to the multiscale study of cancer. Numerical methods are used to simulate the nonlinear effects of stress on solid tumor growth and invasiveness.

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