Leukemia is a cancer of the blood which is characterized by an abnormal proliferation of blood cells. Leukemia is actually a collection of diseases that are usually characterized according to the following two categories:
1) acute or chronic
2) lymphocytic or myelogenous (depending on the type of white blood cells that are infected)
Together with Peter Lee (Hematology, Stanford University) and Peter Kim (University of Utah) we have been working on combining new experimental data and mathematical models to develop new methods for treating leukemia patients. The type of leukmia that we have extensively studied is chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML).
Our research emphasizes the role of the immune system in the progression of the disease. By now it is known that most patients have an anti-leukemia immune response. It remains a mystery as of why this immune response is incapable of providing a sufficient response to the disease.
Our main work in this field was published in the June 2008 issue of PLOS Computational Biology. In this paper we proposed to vaccinating CML patients using their own blood in order to boost their anti-leukemia immune response. Using mathematical models we showed that the key issue is to time the cancer vaccine based on the dynamics of the immune response of the individual patient. A vaccination that is provided to early or too late in the process (i.e. after diagnosis and the initiation of drug-therapy) will have no noticeable effect. Our calculations suggest that such a procedure may ultimately be used to cure the disease. The work assumes that patients are treated with Gleevec (imatinib) starting from the diagnosis of the disease. A timed vaccine may allow them to stop the drug therapy.
This work has been featured in many places including:
1. The official press release from the university
2. Scientific American
3. Science Daily
4. Medical News Today
5. Future Medicine - Future Oncology
6. Forbes
7. A video interview at the NSF was posted on the "NSF Discoveries" webpage.
The PLOS paper can be downloaded from the following link.
A selection of papers from our group on Leukemia:
- A PDE Model for Imatinib-Treated Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 70, 2008, pp. 1994-2016. (with P. Kim and P. Lee)
- Post Transplantation Dynamics of the Immune Response to Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 236, 2005, pp. 39-59 (with R. DeConde, P. Kim, and P. Lee)
- On Stability of a Combined Gleevec and Immune Model of Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia: Exploiting Delay System Structure. Proceedings of 2007 IFAC Symposium on Nonlinear Control (NOLCOS '07), Pretoria (South Africa), (with S. Niculescu, P. Kim and P. Lee)
- Mini-Transplants for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia: A Modeling Perspective, in Queinnec et al. (eds.) "Biology and Control Theory: Current Challenges", Lecture notes in control and information sciences, LNCIS 357, Springer, Berlin, 2007, pp. 3-20. (with P. Kim and P. Lee)
- Stability Crossing Boundaries of Delay Systems Modeling Immune Dynamics in Leukemia, Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems B, accepted (with K. Gu, P. Kim, P. Lee, and S. Niculescu)
- Modeling Imatinib-Treated Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia: Reducing the Complexity of Agent-Based Models, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 70, 2008, pp. 724-744. (with P. Kim and P. Lee)
- Dynamics and Potential Impact of the Immune Response to Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, PLOS Computational Biology, 4, 2008, e1000095 doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000095 (with P. Kim and P. Lee)
- New Computational Tools for Modeling Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, Mathematical Modeling of Natural Phenomena, 4, 2009, pp. 48-68 (with M. Peet, P. Kim, and S.-I. Niculescu)