Analyzing the impact of mechanical effects on anticancer treatments

Pietro Mascheroni (Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research)

Thursday 10th October, 2019 14:00-15:00 Maths 311B

Abstract

Drug resistance is still one of the major causes of poor therapy outcomes in cancer. Chemotherapy agents are generally designed to target cells that are rapidly dividing, acting on specific cellular pathways that regulate cell replication. However, in many cancers there exists a low-proliferating cell population that can elude the action of these drugs, contributing to treatment resistance. Different researchers have proposed that compressive stresses may act on solid tumors by hindering cell proliferation, thus enlarging this low-proliferating subpopulation in solid tumors. We analyze this phenomenon through mathematical modeling and present situations in which mechanical compression might indeed reduce the efficacy of anticancer treatments.

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