Mostly Biomathematics Lunchtime Seminar

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Stochastic models of tumor development

Speaker: Izabella Stuhl, Mathematics Department, Penn State University

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1314

Date: Tuesday, December 5, 2017, 12:30 p.m.

Synopsis:

We shall report a recent work combining theoretical and experimental results related to tumor formation and tumor growth phenomena.  The theoretical base is a modification of the Widom-Rowlinson model, widely used in Theoretical Chemistry and applications.  The model was used in order to distinguish between the normal and cancer cells based on their contact inhibition degrees.  Experiments were conducted on a co-culture of immortalized keratinocyte cells (HaCaT) and human metastatic melanoma cells (SKMEL-147) which was initially in a state of uniform mixture. The theory predicts a formation of tumor-like clusters which was confirmed in the experiments.  We will discuss details of the theory and experiments and implications of this work for possible tumor treatments.