Can abstract equations predict how cancer cells learn to survive?
In short: Cancer is not a static disease; it is an evolving adversary that learns to bypass our best defenses. By applying mathematical modeling to biological systems, researchers are moving beyond observing symptoms to predicting the evolutionary dynamics of therapy resistance in real-time.
Therapy resistance remains one of the most significant hurdles in treating advanced cancers. While targeted therapies are initially effective at attacking specific mutations—such as those involving the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene—the efficacy eventually drops as cancer cells adapt to the treatment. A major mystery in oncology is how this resistance actually evolves over time, as current understanding of these mechanisms remains limited.
Dr. Nara Yoon, an applied mathematician at Adelphi University, is addressing this by treating cancer evolution as a mathematical problem. Rather than viewing resistance as a single pivotal event, her team hypothesizes that it is caused by a series of cell mutations occurring over time. To test this, she collaborated with molecular biologists and bioinformaticians to grow cells from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), specifically focusing on the rare ALK+ mutation associated with metastasis.
By observing how these cells react to drugs that inhibit the ALK gene in a controlled environment, Yoon's team can feed original biological data into mathematical models. These models aim to describe the prognosis of human disease and suggest optimal therapeutic strategies. The goal is to move from reactive treatment to proactive intervention, creating therapies that can specifically inhibit the evolutionary pathways cancer uses to survive.
This approach exemplifies the power of mathematical modeling as a tool for global challenges. From addressing environmental crises like whale conservation to decoding complex biological systems, math provides a framework to gain insights into how the world works and, crucially, how we can change it.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Can Maths Save The Whales and Cure Cancer?
- Also: Maths in Cancer Treatment: Can Math Crack Cancer's Code?
- Also: www.pbs.org — Machine Learning, Whales, and Cancer Treatment: Week in Review | NOVA | PBS
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