Fighting Cancer With Mathematics
From Ami Radunskaya, Halmos distinguished visiting professor: What can mathematics tell us about the treatment of cancer? Quite a lot!
In this talk I’ll present some of the work I’ve done in modeling tumor growth and treatment over the past 20 years. I’ll also share how my PhD in pure math led me to this exciting, interdisciplinary work.
Cancer is a collection of individual diseases, with the common feature that an individual’s own cells have become malignant. Treatment of cancer poses great challenges, since an attack must be mounted against cells that are nearly identical to normal cells. Mathematical formulas that describe tumor growth, the immune response, and the administration of different therapies can suggest treatment strategies that increase treatment efficacy and minimize negative side-effects.
I’ll give a few examples of how mathematicians work with doctors and immunologists to understand the development of the disease and to design effective treatments.
This talk is intended for a general audience: no knowledge of biology or advanced mathematics will be assumed.
If you missed the public lecture, you may watch the recording of the live stream.