BRPtumor Collaboration:

In spite of advancements in diagnostics and therapeutics, the outcome for patients suffering from highly malignant brain tumors remains uniformly fatal. Responsible for this grim prognosis are the rapid tumor growth, clonal heterogeneity, acquired treatment resistance and the extensive tumor invasion, rendering cytoreductive therapy ineffective. We believe that malignant tumors behave as complex dynamic, adaptive and self-organizing biosystems rather than as unorganized cell masses. Employing a profoundly interdisciplinary approach, our multi-institutional Bioengineering Research Partnership Team investigates a set of groundbreaking tumor biology concepts. Paradigm-shifting insights into brain tumor growth, heterogeneity, invasion and angiogenesis are expected, which in turn may eventually build the basis for the development of more successful therapeutic strategies.

About Us: (click the About Us button for more info)

Our Bioengineering Research Partnership (BRP) is motivated by the following three hypotheses:

• malignant brain tumors behave as complex dynamic biosystems;
• these tumor systems invade according to the principle of "least resistance, most permission and highest attraction";
  
• their spatio-temporal behavior can be simulated and predicted using a set of innovative computational models, which are based on in vitro, in vivo and human data. For this challenging task, our BRP-Team uses an interdisciplinary approach combining cancer research, bioengineering, statistical physics, materials science, biomedical imaging, mathematical biology, computational and complex systems science.

People: (click the People button for more info):

E.Antonio Chiocca, MD PhD (Co-PI BRP) EA.Chiocca@osumc.edu Curriculum Vitae Chiocca Lab	Thomas S. Deisboeck, M.D. (Co-PI BRP) deisboec@helix.mgh.harvard.edu Curriculum Vitae Deisboeck Lab
Michael E. Berens, Ph.D. mberens@tgen.org Curriculum Vitae Berens Lab	David A Weitz, Ph.D. weitz@deas.harvard.edu Curriculum Vitae Weitz Lab
Leonard M. Sander, Ph.D. lsander@umich.edu Curriculum Vitae Sander Lab

Projects: (click the Projects button for more info)

SPECIFIC AIM 1: EXPERIMENTAL MODELING

SPECIFIC AIM 2: COMPUTATIONAL MODELING

Recent Publications from BRPtumor.org Investigators: (click the Publications button for more info)

Gordon VD, Valentine MT, Gardel ML, Andor-Ardo D, Dennison S, Bogdanov AA, Weitz DA, Deisboeck TS. Measuring the mechanical stress induced by an expanding multicellular tumor system: a case study. Exp Cell Res. 2003 Sep 10;289(1):58-66.

Sander LM, Deisboeck TS. Growth patterns of microscopic brain tumors. Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2002 Nov;66(5 Pt 1):051901. Epub 2002 Nov 06.

Deisboeck TS, Berens ME, Kansal AR, Torquato S, Stemmer-Rachamimov AO, Chiocca EA. Pattern of self-organization in tumour systems: complex growth dynamics in a novel brain tumour spheroid model. Cell Prolif. 2001 Apr;34(2):115-34. PMID: 11348426

Institutions: (click the Institutions button for more info)

The Ohio State University Department of Surgery Division of Neurological Surgery	Neurosurgical Service, and Department of Radiology Massachusetts General Hospital
Department of Physics Harvard University	Department of Physics University of Michigan
Neurogenomics Division Translational Genomics Research Institute

 

 

Meetings: (click the Meetings button for more info)

 

Funding: Work of the BRP Team is supported by the NIH-National Cancer Institute (RO1-CA085139).

(click the Funding button for more info)

 

Contact Us: (click the Contact Us button for more info)

E. Antonio Chiocca, M.D. Ph.D. (Co-PI BRP) Phone: 614-293-5444 Fax: 614-293-4281 Email: Chiocca-1@medctr.osu.edu

Thomas S. Deisboeck, M.D. (Co-PI BRP) Phone: 617-452-2226 (MIT) Facsimile: 617-253-2514 (MIT) Phone: 617-724-1845 (MGH) Facsimile: 617-726-5079 (MGH) Email: deisboec@helix.mgh.harvard.edu

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