[PDE & Applications seminar] Johan Dubbeldam: Using mathematical modeling and game theory to optimize therapy in cancer patients

07 september 2023 16:00 t/m 17:00 - Locatie: Snijderszaal LB 01.010 EEMCS | Zet in mijn agenda

In this talk I will present a game-theoretic model of a cancer cell population where the treatment-induced resistance is a quantitative evolving trait and the sensitive and resistant cancer cells compete with each other. We first investigate whether a constant treatment dose can stabilize the tumor burden at an acceptable level. When stabilization is possible, we expand the model into a Stackelberg evolutionary game (SEG), with the physician as the leader and the cancer cells as followers. Here the physician chooses a treatment dose to maximize the patient's quality of life, while the cancer cells evolve resistance to the treatment in order to better proliferate and survive. We find the Nash and Stackelberg equilibria of the SEG game, corresponding to the ecological (or ecologically enlightened) therapy and evolutionary (or evolutionarily enlightened) therapy, respectively, and compare them to the outcomes of applying the maximum tolerable dose (MTD). Finally, some recent work about applying control theory to these models will be discussed. This work was done in collaboration with Hasti Garjani, Frederik Thomsen and Katerina Stankova, Monica Salvioli.