Completion Date
6-2015
Advisor(s)
Dana Paquin
Abstract
Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is a cancer that begins in the bone marrow and spreads to the bloodstream and other organs if left uncontrolled. Although most patients undergo some sort of remission with the standard drug imatinib, patients will inevitably relapse [1]. Many CML researchers utilize mathematical models to understand leukemia and immune-‐ response interaction and to create novel methods of treatment. We adopt a time-‐delay differential equation model, used by Michor et. al [2], which incorporates biologically significant parameters and leukemia –T-‐cell interactions. Inconveniently, the model is a system of nine nonlinear differential equations encompassing over two dozen parameters. This project intends to mitigate the complexities of the model by analyzing each parameter over an acceptable range of values by numerical simulations in MATLAB and visualizing the effects these variations have on the system. Our ultimate goal is to give immunologists additional insight into which biological mechanisms have the greatest effect on the efficacy of imatinib treatment. Communication of these results would be fostered through presentations at conferences and publishing papers in peer-‐reviewed journals.
URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/bkendowments/12
Copyright
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.