Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

International Initiatives

Num4SEP

• Title: Numerics for Spherical Electroporation

• International Partner (Institution - Laboratory - Researcher):

  • University of California, Santa Barbara (United States) - Department of Mechanical Engineering - Frederic Gibou

• Start year: 2017

• See also: http://num4sep.bordeaux.inria.fr/

• Electroporation-based therapies (EPTs) consist in applying high voltage short pulses to cells in order to create defects in the plasma membrane. They provide interesting alternatives to standard ablative techniques, for instance for deep seated badly located tumors. However their use is still limited due to a lack of knowledge of tissue electroporation. The goal of the associate team is to focus on the multiscale numerical modeling of spheroid electroporation, in order to provide new insights in electroporation at the mesoscopic scales (spheroids provide interesting tumor-like biological models). Benefiting from the expertise of F. Gibou’s team in HPC for multiphysics, and the expertise of the team MONC in tumor growth and cell electroporation modeling, the goal of the associate team Num4SEP is to obtain accurate and efficient numerical tools for the quantitative evaluation of the EPTs at the mesoscopic scale.

METAMATS

• Title: Modeling ExperimenTAl MetAsTasiS

• International Partner (Institution - Laboratory - Researcher):

  • Roswell Park Cancer Institute (United States) - Department of Cancer Genetics Department of Medicine Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics (Graduate Program) - John Ebos

• Start year: 2017

• See also: http://metamats.bordeaux.inria.fr/

• The aim of the METAMATS associate team is to bring together a cancer biology experimental laboratory led by John ML Ebos (Roswell Park Cancer Institute) and the inria MONC team composed of applied mathematicians. The Ebos laboratory is specialized in the study of anti-cancer therapeutics (in particular, novel biologically targeted therapeutics such as anti-angiogenics and immunotherapies) on the development of metastases and produces unique, hard-to-obtain data sets on this process' dynamics. The MONC team is specialized in mathematical models in oncology, with a dedicated axis about modeling support and methodological development for analysis of data from preclinical studies. In particular, the work of S. Benzekry puts emphasis on proposing, studying and validating mathematical models of metastatic development under the action of various therapeutic modalities. Indeed, metastatic expansion remains the main challenge in the treatment of cancer and integrative studies combining experiments, mathematical models and clinical data have the potential to yield predictive computational tools of help to assist both the design of clinical trials and clinical oncologists in therapeutic decisions such as the control of the toxicity/efficacy balance or the optimal combination of treatment modalities.

• Collaboration with Jonathan Mochel at the Department of Biomedical Sciences of Iowa State University (Ames, Iowa, USA). Development of mechanistic pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics models for comparative oncology (i.e. translational oncology across species integrating veterinary medicine). Sebastien Benzekry is Affiliate Assistant Professor at Iowa State University.

• Collaboration between Sebastien Benzekry and the laboratory of Yuval Shaked at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine of the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel). Our joint work deals with validating mathematical models of host-mediated resistance mechanisms to anti-cancer therapies.