[MS11] Dynamics of Pattern Formation and Morphogenesis in Biological Systems

[MS11-05] Mechanical and Chemical Interactions in Tumor Growth: Insights from Mathematical Modeling

*Min-Jhe Lu¹, John Lowengrub² (1. National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan), 2. University of California, Irvine (United States of America))

Keywords:

Mechano-chemical tumor modeling,Energetic variational approach,Elastic tumor model

The building of the mechano-chemical tumor model aims to understand how the mechanical interaction and the biochemical reactions can influence the dynamics of tumor growth. In essence, the mechanical interactions within cellular structures generate stress responses, while the concomitant biochemical reactions involve various chemical species that, for example, supply nutrients to the tumor. In this talk, I will first demonstrate how we build the tumor models with energetic variational approaches, and the numerical simulations in both sharp interface and diffuse interface formulation will also be given. Then, I will show how we use this type of model to study brain tumors, focusing on the role of a mechanically gated ion channel, PIEZO1, which is crucial in transducing mechanical signals into biochemical responses within the tumor microenvironment. We aim to understand better how PIEZO1 influences brain tumor growth with the evidence gathered from the experiment. Since the brain tumor experiments setup introduces the gel environment, I will show how we construct and simulate a novel elastic tumor model that can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanical and biochemical interactions that drive brain tumor growth.