Computational modelling of cancer and aging
Key Words
Cancer, aging, systems biology, cellular dynamics
Research Interests
As tissues age, cells accumulate mutations that change the activity of proteins. These changes may alter how the cells grow and compete in the tissue, enabling clones to persist and expand by increasing their fitness. Over time these clones may colonise the tissue, only to stop or regress as they meet alternative clones of similar or greater fitness. This process of expansion and regression may occur several times over a lifetime. Fit clones are however not necessarily cancer progressing, but may contain the seeds of cancer.
My group uses computational biology to study the impact of mutations on cells, from how it changes the activity of individual proteins, to how it alters the phenotype of the cell, to the competition of cells in a tissue. Through understanding the effect of mutation we hope to identify new routes to patient stratification and therapy.