Mathematical modelling of growth control in Drosophila development

你有没有想过为什么你的手是这么大的？或者为什么有些人的手更大，但它们的形状和比例与你的手几乎相同？对器官生长的控制非常复杂，但又非常重要，因为当控制系统失灵时，我们就会过度生长，经常会患上癌症。器官如何知道何时停止生长？它如何控制自己的形状？如果我们能理解这一点，也许我们就能理解当组织过度生长时会发生什么，并从源头上治疗问题（例如癌症）。许多生物学家已经成功地使用果蝇的翅膀作为模型来研究生长控制，揭示了与人类生长控制的许多相似之处。我希望把所有这些数据，拼图的碎片，放在一起，形成一个数学/计算机模型，最终做出一个虚拟的翅膀。我将能够比较不同控制机制的相对重要性，这很难通过实验来实现。我可能会发现内部控制是关键，环境起不到什么作用，反之亦然。我还可以模拟不同的癌症状况，并在决定它们是否值得实验/临床尝试之前快速测试治疗方法。

Have you ever wondered why your hands are the size they are? Or why some people have bigger hands, but they are almost identical in shape and proportion to your hands? The control of organ growth is highly complex, but highly important, as when the control system fails, we get overgrowth, and frequently cancer. How does the organ know when to stop growing? How does it control its shape? If we can understand this, perhaps we will be able to understand what happens when tissues over grow, and treat the problem (e.g. cancer) at its source. Many biologists have successfully used the Drosophila wing as a model to study growth control, revealing many parallels to human growth control. I hope to put all these data, the pieces of a puzzle, together, into a mathematical/computer model and eventually make a virtual wing. I‘ll be able to compare the relative importance of the different control mechanisms, something that‘s quite hard to do via experiments. I may find that internal control is key, and the environment plays little role, or vice versa. I can also model different cancerous conditions, and quickly test treatments before deciding whether they are worth trying experimentally/clinically.