Title: Data-driven mathematical modeling, computation and experimental investigation of dynamical heterogeneity in breast cancer

Abstract:

Solid tumors are heterogeneous in composition. Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a highly tumorigenic cell type found in developmentally diverse tumors that are believed to be resistant to standard chemotherapeutic drugs and responsible for tumor recurrence. Thus understanding the tumor growth kinetics is critical for development of novel strategies for cancer treatment. For this talk, I shall introduce mathematical modeling with computational investigation to study Her2 signaling for the dynamical interaction between cancer stem cells (CSCs) and non-stem cancer cells, and our findings reveal that two negative feedback loops are critical in controlling the balance between the population of CSCs and that of non-stem cancer cells. Furthermore, the model with negative feedback suggests that over-expression of the oncogene HER2 leads to an increase of CSCs by regulating the division mode or proliferation rate of CSCs, which has profound implications for drug development to efficiently treat cancer tumors.

Short Bio:

Dr. Xinfeng Liu currently is a Professor and serves as the Director for Undergraduate Studies at the Department of Mathematics of University of South Carolina. He obtained his Ph.D. from Stony Brook University in 2006. Prior to joining the University of South Carolina, Dr. Liu was a visiting assistant professor from 2006-2009 at University of California at Irvine. Dr. Liu's research is mainly focused on mathematical modeling and computational methods for various applications, including fluid dynamics, computational systems biology, cancer tumor growth, etc. His research has been supported through multiple grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF).