This project is for support for US participants to participate in a workshop entitled, "Mathematical Modeling of Tumor-Immune System Dynamics" to be held in Sydney, Australia from January 7-10, 2013. The workshop aims at bringing together applied mathematicians, biologists, and clinicians actively working in the field of cancer immunology in order to share their current research and exchange ideas, as well as increasing awareness of the innovative mathematical tools that are available and suitable for the growing field of cancer immunology. The workshop will include keynote tutorials by leading experts in the field of cancer immunology, group discussions, poster sessions, senior/junior presentations, and a summary panel discussion. A major objective of this workshop is to explore opportunities for future collaborative interaction and educational exchange amongst cancer immunology practitioners across Asian Pacific and North American countries.
Recent progress in cancer immunology and the advances in immunotherapy suggest that the immune system plays a fundamental role in host defense against tumor, and could be utilized to prevent or cure cancer. The purpose of this workshop is to: (1) share new advances in the field of mathematical and computational models of tumor-immune dynamics, (2) catalyze and identify potential areas for future collaborative opportunities between US and Australian researchers in the field of the cancer immunology, (3) establish novel approaches for interdisciplinary research, data sharing and ways of applying computational approaches to cancer immunology, and (4) explore innovative methods of combining mathematical and computational modeling of biological processes with undergraduate and graduate student education.
This workshop includes US and international mathematicians, biologists and clinicians, and participation will catalyze new collaborations, and energize existing international collaborative research among these scientists. In particular, the workshop will involve junior researchers and students from Asian Pacific and North American countries, providing opportunities for new and early-career mathematicians and biologists to enter this fast growing interdisciplinary field of cancer immunology. To stimulate new interests in this kind of interdisciplinary work, the workshop will schedule a panel discussion on how to cultivate a sustained collaboration between US, Australian and international scientists. The workshop will also have an educational impact by providing training to graduate students, early-career scholars and clinicians in cancer-immune dynamics. This workshop will serve as a platform for facilitating interdisciplinary interactions between experienced and beginning researchers in tumor-immune dynamics. In addition, the workshop will identify opportunities for overseas training and exchange programs for US investigators and graduate students motivated by the challenging problems in cancer immunology in Australia and elsewhere. Five of the plenary speakers are female, and two of them are minority. The organizers plan to post lectures online, and publish proceedings in an internationally recognized journal in math biology.
was held at the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia on January 7-10, 2013. The workshop was organized by Dr. Amina Eladdadi from the College of Saint Rose, NY, Dr. Peter Kim from the University of Sydney, Dr. Dann Mallet from the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, and Dr. Chae-Ok Yun from Hanyang University in Korea. A follow up workshop on Tumor-Immune Dynamics Modeling was then held at the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) in San Jose, California on January 5-9, 2015 ran by the same organizers. The follow up workshop was jointly sponsored by AIM and this NSF Award # 1249258. The gathering provided a forum for applied mathematicians, biologists, and medical doctors working in cancer and/or immunology to exchange ideas and to explore opportunities for collaborative exchange and education between the US, Australia, and other countries. The Sydney workshop included eight plenary lectures, two parallel sessions of fourteen contributed and invited talks by junior scientists, and three roundtable discussions. The plenary lectures covered a variety of topics including application of optimal control to tumor immunotherapy; the cutting-edge concept of metronomics, a reemerging approach to treating cancer by applying low dose chemotherapy over prolonged periods, rather than brief, intense protocols; experimental studies on the determination of T cell fate; agent-based modeling of tumor-immune dynamics; advances in cancer virotherapy with clinical applications to melanoma and lung cancer; partial differential equation models of cancer-immune coevolution; and current advances and challenges in immunotherapy of melanoma. Roundtable discussions included audience participation and covered issues related to international and interdisciplinary collaboration and education. Specific topics were: international collaborations in cancer immunology, Mathematical Biology Education, and Metronomics. The program also featured a public lecture sponsored by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI). The public lecture was given by Prof. Trachette Jackson on "Mathematical Biology: An Essential Part of 21st Century Science". Prof. Jackson’s lecture was well received as she gave a broad overview of the field of Mathematical Biology, highlighted historical successes, and showcased specific examples from her work on cancer treatment to show new ways that mathematics has been applied to solve cutting-edge biological and medical problems. Overall, the workshop had a far-reaching and broad impact in a way that it contributed to stimulating new international collaborations, providing a forum for early-career researchers and students to interact with international leaders of the field, and discussing recent advances and current problems in the growing field of cancer immunology. In addition, the meeting contributed to the training and education of US and international participants, and many experimentalists were newly exposed to mathematical models and approaches for cancer immunology. Similarly, early-career and more experienced mathematicians found new opportunities for mathematical modeling and interdisciplinary collaboration. The workshop also broadened the participation of women and researchers from all levels. In particular, fourteen participants were women, representing 35% of the workshop, and four of them were plenary speakers. Furthermore, the forty participants consisted of 31 academics, 5 graduate students, 3 undergraduates, and one person from industry. The organizers received very positive feedback from the participants, who expressed interest in a similar meeting in the future. A detailed description of the US-Sydney workshop including the plenary and contributed lectures, and photos can be found at the following website: https://sites.google.com/site/Sydneytumorimmune/. A detailed report on the Sydney workshop can also be found here in p. 5-6 (www.smb.org/publications/newsletter/vol26no1.pdf) New collaborations and projects in connection with this workshop are currently ongoing. Several research papers are in progress as a result of the collaboration between the organizers and US and international researchers. The organizers published a special edition of a Springer Books Series titled "Mathematical Models of Tumor-Immune System Dynamics" - dedicated to the proceedings of the workshop and written with the aim of training and educating graduate students and professionals. The follow up AIM workshop focused on (1) identifying key questions in cancer immunology and immunotherapy that are suitable and timely for mathematical modeling; (2) assessing modeling approaches that are appropriate to address these biological and medical questions, (3) determining what types of experimental studies and data can inform model development, and (4) facilitating collaboration between experimental and computational scientists in cancer-immunotherapies. The workshop brought together twenty-one participants (six leading experts and fifteen junior scientists) in applied and computational mathematics, biology, as well as clinical medicine, spanning both developing and developed countries. The participants came from Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, and the USA. They all gathered with a strong interest in understanding the complex interactions between the immune system and tumors, devising predictive mathematical models, and linking data to models. Some participants were from primarily teaching institutions whereas others from primarily research institutions. A full report on the AIM workshop activities can be found here: http://aimath.org/pastworkshops/tumorimmune2.html
