5.
4 Aim 4. Train a group of mathematicians, engineers and cancer biologists in the development and use of mathematical modeling of cancer invasion, as welt as develop courseware and open-source software products for use by such individuals at other institutions. The biomathematics training component at Vanderbilt will serve: Undergraduates, Graduate Students, Postdoctoral fellows and Faculty. Training will take place mainly in the Biomathematics Study Group and the Department of Cancer Biology. 5.4.t Goals Our goals are to: a. train mathematicians to interact with biologists by learning about their research problems and to become familiar with some basic principles and the terminology of biology and bo teach biologist to understand the mathematical modeling process so that they can help mathematicians formulate the models and provide the validation of these models. 5?4.2 Undergraduate training Undergraduate training: a. incorporate simple mathematical models used in tumor research into the standard mathematical courses that are taken by undergraduate science and engineering majors (ordinary and partial differential equations, numerical computing); b. use cancer models in our biomathematics courses. A seminar type course will be added to the BSG curriculum that will focus on the mathematical modeling of tumors; e? have the undergraduates participate in Dr. Lou DeFeliee's undergraduate research experience. This program enhances the existing Biomathematics Study Group (BSG) curriculum and will assist in the development of the proposed Vanderbilt Interdisciplinary Educational Program (VIEP), a new framework for teaching and mentoring at Vanderbilt. The program is an entirely new undergraduate course, which will be taught by researchers from mathematics and the biological sciences. It places undergraduates into interdisciplinary research teams and pairs them with graduate students working in an interdisciplinary research groups. The program brings together biomedical researchers located primarily in the School of Medicine with biomathematics, biophysicists, and biomedical engineers. The program recruits freshman in the College of Arts and Science and continues throughout the student's undergraduate training. The purpose of the program is to direct talented undergraduates to careers in biomedical research; these students will enter graduate training with strong backgrounds in quantitative approaches to biomedical problems. A proposal to NIH has been submitted to fired this venture; do entice undergraduates to work in cancer laboratories in the existing summer research programs at Vaderbilt; eo share our undergraduate initiatives with Fisk University and Tennessee State University, two minority institutions in Nashville with which we have ties to both mathematical and biological departments at Vanderbilt. 5.4?3 Graduate training Both Mathematics Graduate Students and Students from the VUMC Interdisciplinary Graduate Program (IGP) will be recruited into the Program. For the mathematics students, a curriculum is already in place whereby they take the standard mathematical courses (analysis, topology, algebra, etc) required of every graduate student in the Mathematics Department. In addition, they take courses in cell biology and biochemistry. To further enhance their exposure to the biological sciences, they rotate through laboratories and are jointly mentored by a faculty member from both the Department of Mathematics and a department in the biological sciences, including Cancer Biology. Similarly, IGP students in the School of Mediicine will take their standard courses and, in addition, they will be introduced to a five-step process for creating a mathematical model: (QAFSA) 1. ask the Question; 2. study the Approach: 3. Formulate the mathematical model; 4. Solve the model and 5. Answer the question. Ultimately, each student will be given a simple biological problem and will be asked to formulate a mathematical model for it. Where possible, we will team IGP and biomathematics graduate students to work on such problems thereby allowing each to learn from each other. Some of present IGP students are interested in learning more mathematics and we currently have two students from the IGP program that are taking traditional mathematics courses. We will also establish an Exchange Program for graduate students between Vanderbilt and the University of Dtmdee. This program will be between the Biomathematics Study Group at Vanderbilt and the SIMBIOS Center at the University of Dundee. 5.4.4 Post-Graduate training Post-doctoral Fellows will also be brought into the program through our ongoing practice ofhMng post-does coming out of programs such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, cell biology, cancer biology, physics, e_c. These appointments are interdisciplinary and are shared by departments. The post-docs will also be involved in t-raining the undergraduates. 5.4.5 Faculty training Training of FaculW will be accomplished in three ways. We will hold international symposia and workshops on alternating years. Both the symposia and workshops will be advertised in leading Cancer, Cell Biology, Mathematics and Biomathematies journals. a. Workshops will be organized to provide mathematicians with training in cancer biology and cancer biologists with training in mathematical modeling. Each workshop will consist of lectures and demonstrations by invited experts in topics fundamental to the interdisciplinary development of mathematical modeling of rumors. The workshops will be open to participants from graduate m advanced career levels. A prototype organization of such a workshop is given below. The Workshop will be small (30 or less participants) gatherings that bring together mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and biologists and are intended to educate researchers that are new to field of cancer modeling. The workshops will be didactic and the faculty will come from Vanderbilt arid other institutions b. Symposia will be held using the infrastructure of the Vanderbilt University Summer Program. The symposia will be for mathematicians and cancer biologists to present current research to an interdisciplinary audience. The conferences will be modeled on the conference held at Vanderbilt May 2-5, 2002. The conference, entitled Mathematical Models in Cancer, was devoted to the development, analysis, and computer simulation of continuous and discrete models of tumor growth and treatment. Details of the program are available at: htt_p://math.vanderbilt.edu/~horn/biomath/cancerrnain.html. The participants included mathematicians, cancer biologists, clinicians, and pharmaceutical researchers. The proceedings of the conference were published as a special issue of the journal Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems, Vol.4, No. 1, 2004 (abstracts and titles appended). Similar organization and format will be used for conferences planned as part of this proposal. A primary goal will be to involve both mathematicians and biologists in the convergence of methodologies of tumor mode1 research. e. Fellowship Programs (1-2 years) to reu'am mathematicians in cancer research. 5,4.6 Dissemination of Program for All In order to attract candidates to the program, we will a. construct a website that contains: Statement of purpose Research groups Downloadable publications On-line animations of our models Meetings/workshops Education material b. develop multimedia presentation using the Office of Science & Research Communications at Vanderbilt. These products (e.g., movies) will use to publicize the work of the group to the general public and Co make available members of our group to make non-technical presentations to students (primarily high school and undergraduate) about the research projects that involve the coming together of mathematics and biology. do advertise the Program in Cancer. Ce!i Bioiogy and Mathematics arid Biomathematics journals 5M?7 Multimedia presentations We will produce multimedia presentations that highlight the activities of this project for the general public, the classroom, and the professional (clinical and basic research). These presentations will be in different formats depending on the need of the target audience, including broadcast digital beta sp, vhs, DVD, Quicktime movies, etc. Presentations will be produced for video and DVD distribution, as well as appropriate material digitized and downloadable from the program website. In addition, feature stories will be submitted to local and national broadcast television outlets as well as relevant professional journals including Exploration, the online research journal of Vanderbilt University, (http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu/l. The board of advisors for this award-winning journal includes members of the National Academy and Nobel laureates, prominent science journalists from prestigious media outlets such as the Washington Post and Nova/WGBH. Utilizing the experience and connections of our visual communications director, Kathy Conkwright, as weI1 as the Exploration board of advisors, a broadcast feature documentary will be produced highlighting this project should be broadly distributed in many different areas and formats. All relevant activities of this project will be turned into visual communications tools to be used in a variety of capacities including training and recruiting students and post-does, as well as educating and informing faculty and the general public. Planned productions include: Visual documentation of relevant panels, presentations and conferences; Produced and edited DVD series of week-long yearly workshop; ? 3 produced and updated training and education videos that target, respectively, experimental biologists, mathematicians and laymen; * Broadcast quality documentary to be distributed to national public television, cable television, universities and public libraries, to increase awareness and support regarding issues of cancer research including its scope, pace, advances and potential funding. In addition, the program will strive to recruit advocates and future professionals, as well as popularize this field of study as a critical advance in the battle against cancer.
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