SEMINARIO DI MATEMATICA APPLICATA (16 gennaio)

[Giacomo Aletti <giacomo.aletti@unimi.it>]

Precedence: bulk

Apologies for cross-posting,
---


Come annunciato lo scorso mese,

Giovedi' 16 Gennaio 2003, ore 15.30
Aula Rappresentanza, Dipartimento di Matematica (Via Saldini 50, Milano)



SEMINARIO DI MATEMATICA APPLICATA
---------------------------------


The Strange Case of Doctor Newton and Mr. Cancer


Alberto d'Onofrio

Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
European Institute of Oncology
Via Ripamonti 435, Milano,
Italy, I-20141

Even if they are often seen as a sort of methaphysical entities,
cancers are physical systems subject to Newtonian mechanics, hence
the tools of mathematical physics may be and are being usefully
used to study their growth and their treatment-induced regression.
In the first part of this talk, we will shortly analyze the basic
principles of medical oncology and we will stress their
essentially mathematical nature, which, however, is very seldom
actively used in the medical research and practice. On the
contrary, we think that also a ``moderate'' use of mathematical
modelling (via, of course, user-friendly softwares) might lead to
an improvement of drug scheduling and also to a better
understanding of some causes of the non-response to  therapies. In
the second part of the talk, we will examine two nonlinear
dynamical systems: a finite-dimensional model of anti-angiogenesys
therapy [1] and an infinite-dimensional model of chemo and radio
treatment of tumor cords [2,3]. Their mathematical properties and
the related biological inferences will be examined.


[1] A. d'Onofrio & A. Gandolfi: "Biomathematical
properties of some models of anti-angiogenesis therapy" (2003)
submitted.
[2] A. Bertuzzi, A. d'Onofrio, A. Fasano &
A. Gandolfi: "Regression and regrowth of tumor cords following
single dose of anticancer treatment" (2002) submitted.
[3] A. Bertuzzi, A. d'Onofrio, A. Fasano &  A.
Gandolfi: "Modelling cell populations with spatial structure:
steady state and treatment induced evolution of tumor cords"
(2002) submitted.


---------------------------------
La home page del seminario e' http://www.users.unimi.it/~pavarino/sma/
Il seminario e' organizzato dal Dipartimento di Matematica dell'Universita'
di Milano in collaborazione con MIRIAM (MIlan Research group in Industrial
and Applied Mathematics) e il Dottorato di Ricerca MACRO (MAtematica
Computazionale e Ricerca Operativa) e MSSCI (Matematica, Statistica, Scienze
Computazionali e Informatica). Per ulteriori informazioni contattare Luca
Pavarino o Kevin Payne.



--------------------------

Giacomo Aletti, Ph.D.
Dept. of Mathematics
University of Milan
V. Saldini, 50
20131 Milano (MI)
ITALY
Tel. +39(02)-503-16158
Fax +39(02)-503-16092
giacomo.aletti@unimi.it