Evolution Game Theory Modeling of Tumor Dormancy

肿瘤休眠的进化博弈论建模

• 批准号: 1659940
• 负责人: Robert Austin
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: Princeton University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-08-01 至 2020-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1659940&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Evolution; Game; Theory; Modeling; Tumor

The PI of this project has developed a unique in vitro technology which can provide a realistic tumor-like environment to study the interactions between different cells. One can study both different cancer cells and cancer cells interacting with other cells in the organ. However, without a strong quantitative model capable of guiding our understanding of how these cell population change with time, we cannot quantitatively understand the progression of the cell populations nor make predictions of the cancer evolution. The PI will use sophisticated evolutionary game theory models to capture the complex dynamics observed in the experiments. Currently the path from diagnosis through estimation of hazards to emergence of the end of dormancy cannot be predicted and this project will develop understanding of how to follow different stages of cancer. Combining the PI?s technology with new micro-imaging modalities that have been developed by physicists, this project can be used to monitor the duration of dormancy in tumors, prescribe time-dependent therapies, and predict cancer emergence from dormancy. This EAGER project will tackle the difficult problem of combining sophisticated, realistic game theory in patchy, locally interacting and stochastic systems and apply it to a micro-fabricated technology designed to mimic the actual tumor environment. The singularities in the ordinary differential equations that gave rise to dormancy are in principle removed by this modeling, and the PI will test the modeling with experimental re-emergence of cancer cell viability under stress. This project is being jointly supported by the Physics of Living Systems program in the Division of Physics and the Molecular Biophysics Cluster in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences.

该项目的负责人开发了一种独特的体外技术，可以提供逼真的类肿瘤环境来研究不同细胞之间的相互作用。人们可以研究不同的癌细胞以及与器官中其他细胞相互作用的癌细胞。然而，如果没有一个强大的定量模型能够指导我们了解这些细胞群如何随时间变化，我们就无法定量地了解细胞群的进展，也无法预测癌症的演变。 PI 将使用复杂的进化博弈论模型来捕捉实验中观察到的复杂动态。目前，从诊断到危害评估再到休眠结束的过程尚无法预测，该项目将加深对如何跟踪癌症不同阶段的了解。该项目将 PI 技术与物理学家开发的新显微成像模式相结合，可用于监测肿瘤休眠的持续时间、制定时间依赖性疗法以及预测癌症从休眠中的出现。这个 EAGER 项目将解决将复杂、现实的博弈论与零散、局部相互作用和随机系统相结合的难题，并将其应用于旨在模拟实际肿瘤环境的微制造技术。该模型原则上消除了引起休眠的常微分方程中的奇点，并且 PI 将通过癌细胞在压力下的实验重新出现活力来测试该模型。该项目得到了物理系生命系统物理学项目和分子和细胞生物科学系分子生物物理学集群的共同支持。