This workshop aims to take a closer look at how mathematical and computational models can help answer clinically relevant questions and enhance multimodal treatments. Currently, a wide range of modelling approaches study cancer and have a crucial role in treatment delivery from answering questions related to cancer biology and treatment efficacy to directly helping with treatment delivery. In this workshop, we would like to bring together clinicians, biomedical experts, experimentalists, and mathematicians to explore some of the relevant questions on multimodal treatment modelling, efficacy, optimization, drug resistance and clinical delivery.

 

Each day of the workshop will focus on a particular theme such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy and we will invite experts in that area to discuss the current developments, novel applications, and open questions to promote active discussion and develop ideas and partnerships for future exploration. By bringing together experts that work on different topics, we hope to achieve synergy among these areas, exchange ideas, and enhance collaborations. Furthermore, we are planning to dedicate the final day of the workshop to producing a white paper, highlighting the clinically relevant modelling studies in each theme, and identifying open questions. Each day, we will have one plenary speaker with a clinical and experimental background and one plenary speaker with a mathematical modelling background. We will choose mathematical modellers with experience working with clinicians and clinical experimentalists with experience and interest in working with modellers.

 

Our meeting will seek to build bridges between mathematical biologists and clinical experimentalists that will continue beyond the workshop. In particular, we will seek participants who have an expressed capacity and interest in venturing into new interdisciplinary projects. This focus will particularly provide a fertile environment for PhD students and early-career researchers to launch new collaborations that could propel their careers and help foster a stronger collaborative research culture linking mathematics and oncology. We are also planning that on the final day of the workshop, we will work together to write a summary paper highlighting the major developments in each topic. This could potentially serve as a helpful starting point for anyone interested in this research area.