This week in MathOnco 216

Evolutionary game theory, reaction-diffusion, stochastic control, clinical translation, continuum resistance

“This week in Mathematical Oncology” — June 30, 2022

> mathematical-oncology.org

From the editor:

Today we feature evolutionary game theory, reaction-diffusion, stochastic control, clinical translation, continuum resistance, and more. Enjoy,

Jeffrey West
jeffrey.west@moffitt.org

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"Science begins with counting. To understand a phenomenon, a scientist must first describe it; to describe it objectively, he must first measure it.”
- S. Muhkergee

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1. Challenging Standard-of-Care Paradigms in the Precision Oncology Era
   Vivek Subbiah, Razelle Kurzrock

2. Cancer systems epidemiology: Overcoming misconceptions and integrating systems approaches into cancer research
   Patricia L. Mabry, Nicolaas P. Pronk, Christopher I. Amos, John S. Witte, Patrick T. Wedlock, Sarah M. Bartsch, Bruce Y. Lee

3. ChemChaste: Simulating spatially inhomogeneous biochemical reaction–diffusion systems for modeling cell–environment feedbacks
   Connah G M Johnson, Alexander G Fletcher, Orkun S Soyer

4. Analysis of cancerous tumor growth by the competitive model based on the evolutionary game theory
   Atefeh Deris Mahdi Sohrabi-Haghighat

1. Modelling the mechanical cross-talk between cells and fibrous extracellular matrices using hybrid cellular Potts and molecular dynamics methods
   Erika Tsingos, Bente Hilde Bakker, Koen A.E. Keijzer, Hermen Jan Hupkes, Roeland M.H. Merks

2. Stochastic optimal control to guide adaptive cancer therapy
   MingYi Wang, Jacob G. Scott, Alexander Vladimirsky

3. Promoting extinction or minimizing growth? The impact of treatment on trait trajectories in evolving populations
   Michael Raatz, Arne Traulsen

4. Diffusion approximations in population genetics and the rate of Muller's ratchet
   Camila Braeutigam, Matteo Smerlak

5. Evolutionary dynamics in non-Markovian models of microbial populations
   Farshid Jafarpour, Ethan Levien, Ariel Amir

6. Evolving copy number gains promote tumor expansion and bolster mutational diversification
   Zicheng Wang, Yunong Xia, Lauren Mills, Athanasios N. Nikolakopoulos, Nicole Maeser, Jason M. Sheltzer, Ruping Sun

7. Sequential antibiotic therapy in the lab and in the patient
   Christin Nyhoegen, Hildegard Uecker

8. Drug-induced adaptation along a resistance continuum in cancer cells
   Gustavo Starvaggi Franca, Maayan Baron, Maayan Pour, Benjamin R. King, …, Ayushi Patel, Douglas A. Levine, Timothee Lionnet, Itai Yanai

1. Chemotherapy induces canalization of cell state in childhood B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia
   Nature Cancer: Behind the Paper
   Virginia Turati: “ Our results delineate the selection mechanisms operating during induction chemotherapy, emphasizing the importance of cell state in chemo-resistance. This may be particularly relevant when evaluating the appropriateness of targeting particular genetic lesions, and we hope that helping explain treatment failure will eventually lead to more effective therapies.”

The newsletter now has a dedicated homepage where we post the cover artwork for each issue. We encourage submissions that coincide with the release of a recent paper from your group.

Caption: “The key message of our work ( DOI: 10.1038/s43018-021-00219-3) is that induction chemotherapy in BCP-ALL does not select for genotypes, as it leaves the overall extent of intratumor genetic heterogeneity present in the diagnostic disease unaffected. Instead, it induces canalization (or bottleneck selection) at the level of cell states, which are more heterogeneous than previously appreciated, and partially encoded through aberrant methylation. The idea behind our cover is that a tornado is a metaphor for this biological process of canalization. At the bottom of the image is the tumor cells, heterogeneous in their cell states. As the tornado roams through the tumor with its destructive force, it collects the cells, but some cells, which exist in a resistant cell state, are spared from it. The cover image was entirely computed in R and the code can be found here.”

Created by: Virginia Turati (@TuratiVirginia)

Visit the mathematical oncology page to view jobs, meetings, and special issues. We will post new additions here, but the full list can found at mathematical-oncology.org.

1. Jobs

• PhD position in Mathematical Modelling of brain formation to map species variation and developmental malformations (Noemi Picco and Elaine Crooks) - Deadline July 13, 2022

2. Conferences / Meetings

3. Special issues

• In Silico Models of Cell–Microenvironment Interactions in Healthy and Tumor Tissues (Guest editors: Katarzyna A. Rejniak, Magdalena Stolarska, Gibin Powathil; Deadline: 31 Dec 2022)

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