Modelling bet-hedging: A link between cancer and the emergence of multicellularity

Speaker(s) Frank Ernesto Alvarez Borges Université Paris-Dauphine
Date 3 May 2022 – 14:50 to 15:35
Venue INI Seminar Room 2
Session Title Modelling bet-hedging: A link between cancer and the emergence of multicellularity
Event [FKT] Frontiers in kinetic theory: connecting microscopic to macroscopic scales - KineCon 2022
Abstract

Confronted with the biological problem of managing plasticity in cell populations, which is in particular responsible for transient and reversible drug resistance in cancer, we propose a rationale consisting of an integro-differential and a reaction-advection-diffusion equation, the properties of which are studied theoretically and numerically. By using a constructive finite volume method, we show the existence and uniqueness of a weak solution and illustrate by numerical approximations and their simulations the capacity of the model to exhibit divergence of traits. This feature may be theoretically interpreted as describing a physiological step towards multicellularity in animal evolution and, closer to present-day clinical challenges in oncology, as a possible representation of bet hedging in cancer cell populations.

Presentation Files 35089_0.pdf

Supported By