Clutter Cutter

Newswise — WASHINGTON D.C. Feb. 19, 2014 -- Life can be messy at all scales, requiring different organizational strategies -- from cleaning the house, to removing damaged or expired cells from the body to avoid cancer progression.

In a messy house, people use computers to manage paper and photo clutter; companies use computer systems to track their inventory. Now a team of researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., is taking a similar approach to cell-molecular inventory control for cancer. They have created computer models, using their programming framework (PySB), which enable them to explore the complex biochemical processes that drive cancer growth.

"Our hypothesis is that understanding how the cell uses their protein inventory will lead to understanding why cells dysregulate and become carcinogenic. We expect model outputs will lead to novel, targeted cancer therapies -- possibly by 2019," explained researcher Carlos F. Lopez, who will present the work at the 58th annual Biophysical Society Meeting in San Francisco, Feb.15-19.

Lopez is interested in understanding how cells in multicellular organisms engage programmed cell death -- so-called "cell suicide" -- for cellular removal. It is a natural part of many cells' life cycle.

When cancer cells avoid programmed cell death, uncontrolled growth fuels tumor progression. The Vanderbilt team expects their computer models to identify what goes wrong in these cases, at a speed and scale never before possible. Lopez noted: "We are bridging the nanoscale molecular-level biochemical interactions with the macroscale cancer tumor outcomes, which is a huge range in scales. Most people don't realize this, but molecular chemical reactions at the nanometer and nanosecond level affect things that happen at the timescale level of years -- nine orders of magnitude in space and time! For comparison, a nanosecond is to a second like a second is to one century."

Rather than listing the cellular biochemical reactions by hand, PySB enables the researchers to "write" the biochemical cellular processes as computer programs. "With this approach we can create, simulate, and explore multiple complex mathematical systems that represent biology with ease," Dr. Lopez said.

The models aim to understand how healthy cells normally self-destruct when removal is needed, and why cancer cells avoid the removal signals. If the approach is validated over the next few years, it could lead to the use of predictive mathematical models, representing biochemical signaling processes, to forecast how a cell, group of cells, or a tumor, would respond to single or multiple drug combinations. Targeted, individualized and optimized cancer treatments could then be tailored to each patient.

The presentation "PySB: A Modeling Framework to Explore Biochemical Signaling Processes and Cell-decisions" by Carlos F. Lopez and Shawn P. Garbett will be at 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday, February 19, 2014 in Room 304 in San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. ABSTRACT: http://tinyurl.com/n2nw99a

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ABOUT THE MEETINGEach year, the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting brings together more than 7,000 researchers working in the multidisciplinary fields representing biophysics. With more than 4,200 poster presentations, over 200 exhibits, and more than 20 symposia, the BPS Annual Meeting is the largest meeting of biophysicists in the world. Despite its size, the meeting retains its small-meeting flavor through its subgroup symposia, platform sessions, social activities, and committee programs.

The 58th Annual Meeting will be held at the Moscone Convention Center, 747 Howard Street, San Francisco, California.

PRESS REGISTRATIONThe Biophysical Society invites professional journalists, freelance science writers and public information officers to attend its Annual Meeting free of charge. For press registration, contact Alisha Yocum at [email protected] or Jason Bardi at 240-535-4954.

QUICK LINKSMain Meeting Page: http://tinyurl.com/mfjh37p Program Highlights: http://tinyurl.com/mosxrofAbstracts Search: http://tinyurl.com/lbrearu

ABOUT THE SOCIETYThe Biophysical Society, founded in 1958, is a professional, scientific Society established to encourage development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. The Society promotes growth in this expanding field through its annual meeting, monthly journal, and committee and outreach activities. Its 9000 members are located throughout the U.S. and the world, where they teach and conduct research in colleges, universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry. For more information on the Society, or the 2014 Annual Meeting, visit www.biophysics.org