Please join the Illinois Tech Department of Applied Mathematics on Monday October 24, at 1:50 p.m. in IT 6D6-1 for our weekly Colloquium to hear from Professor Doron Levy for a presentation titled: Fighting Drug Resistance with Math.

Speaker: Doron Levy, University of Maryland

Title: Fighting Drug Resistance with Math

Abstract:
The emergence of drug resistance is a major challenge in chemotherapy. In this talk we will overview some of our recent mathematical models for describing the dynamics of drug-resistance in solid tumors. These models follow the dynamics of the tumor, assuming that the cancer cell population depends on a phenotype variable that corresponds to the resistance level to a cytotoxic drug. Under certain conditions, our models predict that multiple resistant traits emerge at different locations within the tumor, corresponding to heterogeneous tumors. We show that a higher drug dosage may delay a relapse, yet, when this happens, a more resistant trait emerges. The talk will focus on the potential role of mathematics in designing an optimal therapy.

Speaker Bio:
Professor Levy is a Professor of Mathematics and the Math Department Chair at the University of Maryland, College Park. Professor Levy is also the Director of the Brin Mathematics Research Center and serves as the co-director of the NCI-UMD Partnership for Integrative Cancer Research.

Professor Levy is an applied mathematician, whose research focuses on biomedical applications of mathematics. Professor Levy is particularly interested in cancer dynamics, drug resistance, immunology, imaging, and cell motility. Much of Professor Levy’s research is conducted in collaboration with clinicians, experimentalists, and researchers from medical schools, medical research centers, and biology departments.