Профессор Оксфорда применяет математическое моделирование для разработки новых методов лечения рака

Indian-origin Oxford professor taps into therapeutic potential of math modelling Philip Maini, Professor of Mathematical Biology at University of Oxford, has been involved in the area of anti-tumour therapies for some years in collaboration with fellow mathematicians, clinicians and biologists A noted Indian-origin academic in the UK believes that applying mathematics to living systems can reveal new biological insights and point towards potential therapies with real societal benefit. Philip Maini, Professor of Mathematical Biology at University of Oxford, has been involved in the area of anti-tumour therapies for some years in collaboration with fellow mathematicians, clinicians and biologists. His mathematical models have contributed important insights into the design of combination cancer therapy. "We have developed mathematical models of angiogenesis, oxygen delivery and cell growth, which we are now trying to validate experimentally," Professor Maini told the university's 'PULSE' platform this week. "Ultimately, we hope this will be a tool that can predict the chemo/radiotherapy protocol that will lead to the best patient outcome," he said. Maini, born in Northern Ireland to Punjabi immigrants, believes that a biologist focuses on "what" is happening and a mathematician wants to get to the core of "how" things happen. In combining those two aspects lies a better understanding of what is going on within a system to ultimately reveal new ways to approach problems, including developing better disease therapies. More recently, the leading mathematician has applied mathematical models to adaptive therapy, which recognises that tumours are not populations of uniform cells. Therefore, aiming to wipe out as many tumour cells as possible may not be the most effective approach. Professor Maini explains: "A key reason why tumour therapies fail is because they select for resistant cancer cells. Tumours can be thought of as ecosystems made up of both drug-sensitive cells and drug-resistant cells, all competing for the same resources. "Normally, drug-sensitive cells are the dominant population, because having a drug-resistant phenotype tends to carry a fitness cost. But if you apply a therapy so strongly that it wipes out all the sensitive cells, this allows the resistant ones to dominate. Eventually, this leads to cancer progression." The idea behind adaptive therapy is that the drug is applied at a level that keeps a baseline population of sensitive cells, which can keep the resistant tumour cells in check. "The strength of mathematical modelling is that you can try all sorts of different strategies at literally no cost and in a way that you simply couldn't do using clinical tests," adds Maini. For the academic, in his 60s, teaching remains a passion and his student lectures on YouTube have attracted millions of views. The director of Oxford's Wolfson Centre for Mathematical Biology and author of 'Mathematical Biology: A Very Short Introduction' finds the field "exciting" because there are constantly new problems that "require entirely new types of maths to address".