Simulation of Angiogenesis-Tumor Dynamics and Treatment

描述(申请人提供)：癌症是美国第二大死因。尽管该领域的研究非常活跃，但与癌症相关的死亡人数在过去十年中并没有显著下降。与开发有效的治疗方法相关的一个主要问题是，在实验室或临床环境中监测体内癌症行为需要很长的时间尺度。然而，目前理论生物学的进步创造了一种独特的可能性，可以使用基于计算机的数值模拟在计算机上进行许多这样的静力学。我们建议开发高保真软件工具来实现这种模拟。肿瘤控制的关键之一是通过血管生成使肿瘤血管形成。血管生成过程和由此产生的肿瘤反应的数学模型已经存在，可以在宏观和微观尺度上描述系统动力学。拟议的软件将把这些模型合并到一个层次结构中，将宏观和微观行为结合起来，范围从一般的宏观层面的肿瘤发展到微观层面的血管形成细节。这样的模式将有可能极大地减少癌症治疗的研究和开发，这些治疗是以小时和天来衡量的，而不是像目前那样以月来衡量。它还将允许对不适用于体内的治疗方法或受时间限制的治疗进行电子研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. Despite very active research in the area, the number of deaths related to cancer has not fallen significantly in the past decade. A major problem associated with the development of effective treatments is due to long time scales required for monitoring of in-vivo cancer behavior in a laboratory or clinical setting. The current advancements in theoretical biology however, have created a unique possibility to conduct many such statics in-silico, using computer-based numerical simulations. We propose to develop high-fidelity software tools to enable such simulations. One of the keys to tumor control is tumor vascularization through angiogenesis. Mathematical models of the angiogenic processes and the resultant tumor response already exist and can describe the system dynamics on both macro and micro-scales. The proposed software will incorporate these models in a hierarchical structure coupling the macro and micro behavior ranging from the general macro-level tumor development to microlevel vascularization details. Such a model will have the potential to dramatically reduce the study and development of cancer treatments to be measured in hours and days and not months as is currently the case. It will also allow in-silico investigation of treatments that are not practical in-vivo, or are limited by time constraints.