UCI COSMOS 2024: Tumor Modeling 

Welcome to the website for the Tissue and Tumor Modeling cluster of UCI's COSMOS 2024 summer program for high school students! 

Course Schedule Per Week

Contacts : 

Course Instructors: 

John Lowengrub,  PhD - jslowengrub@gmail.com

Felix Grun - fgrun@uci.edu

Teaching Fellow: 

Lynne Kohlhase - lynne.kohlhase@sausdlearns.net

TAs (Bio Labs):

 Angel Blam Beitez-Mata           - abbenite@uci.edu

Luis Enrique Solano - lesolano@uci.edu

Abbey Keegan - keegana@uci.edu

TAs  (Lowengrub's Lab) :

Alice Vo - vojh1@uci.edu

Jonathan Dennis Rodriguez - jonatdr1@uci.edu

COSMOS Course Syllabus

Cluster 3: Tissue and Tumor Biology and Mathematical/Computer Modeling

These courses explore the biological, mathematical, and computational theory of tissue and tumor growth.


Course 1: Mathematical Biology: Modeling of Tissue and Tumor Growth (John Lowengrub, Dept Math, UCI): 

The biological sciences are entering a new era in which scientific advancement requires quantitative solutions to large-scale and complex problems. Mathematical advances in modeling and statistics will play an increasingly important role in the future as tools to understand biological processes and to predict their outcomes. In this course, we will focus on mathematical modeling of tissue and tumor (abnormal tissue) growth. We will start with very basic models and provide prescriptions as how to increase the level of sophistication and thus the realism of the models. This course will be taught in tandem with Course 2: “Growth Control in Normal and Abnormal Tissues”. As the biological mechanisms of growth are introduced in the Biology course, we will present mathematical models of those processes and also introduce, in a self-contained manner, computational algorithms that can be used to simulate the models on the computer. We will discuss applications ranging from tissue engineering to studying the growth of tumors such as melanoma (skin cancer), glioma (brain tumor) and neuroblastoma. Further, we will discuss the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer in a clinical environment. Students will learn how computer simulations can be used to devise optimal cancer therapies.


Course 2: Growth Control In Normal and Abnormal Tissues (Felix Grün, Mass Spectrometry Facility/CCBS)

This course focuses on the processes that regulate the normal growth of cells, how this regulation can be perturbed during the progression to tumor formation and cancer, and how information about these processes can be used to develop strategies for therapeutic intervention. Although modern biology has made tremendous progress in uncovering the basic principles of cellular growth control, much research work remains to fully understand how complex systems are constructed through the interactions of their molecular components to create multicellular organisms that make appropriate growth control decisions. This understanding is essential to allow for rational development of novel treatments for many human diseases including cancers.

Students will explore through lectures and hands-on laboratory practicals, the biological mechanisms regulating growth of living cells and their cooperative interactions in tissues. Lecture topics will include descriptions of the cell cycle and its control points, signal transduction pathways in growth and development, genetic mutations involved in carcinogenesis and limiting parameters on tumor growth. Students will also be able to tour research laboratories active in these areas and receive demonstrations in the application of cutting edge analytical instruments, e.g. confocal fluorescence microscopes. For laboratory sections, students will use simple model organisms (Xenopus frog eggs, Hydra) to study aspects of normal cell behavior in development (rapid cell division, morphogenesis and pattern formation), as well as conduct tissue culture experiments with normal, transformed and stem cell lines to evaluate behavioral differences in growth and cell fate decisions in response to genetic mutations or chemical challenges. The experimental data collected from these studies will be compared to the results from mathematical models for growth control, differentiation and morphogen signaling developed in the mathematical biology course that are relevant to tumor biology. Students will have the opportunity to initiate projects from these themes for further study.

Course Structure:

Lectures: Students will participate in morning lectures (1 biological and 1 mathematical/computational topic) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The topics will introduce important concepts related to growth control in normal tissues and tumors. The information will be related to the subsequent biology practicals and mathematical/ computational tutorials.

Labs: Tuesday and Thursday mornings (9:00 am -12:00 pm) will typically consist of laboratory biology experiments (Steinhaus, Rm 230). Afternoon sessions (1:15-4:00 pm) will be hands-on mathematical/ computational modeling tutorials (NatSci II Rm 4201 or Steinhaus 230).

Projects: Students will be placed in groups of 3-4 for the laboratory practicals/tutorials. Each group will choose a project and pursue a question relevant to growth control in greater detail during the course. Half the projects will be biology oriented, the other half will be focused on mathematical/computational models, but students will be encouraged to combine aspects from each half where possible.

Poster Presentation: Group projects will be presented at the poster session on the final day (08/02/2024).