More Efficient Cancer Therapy Proposed By Game Theory
Mathematicians at Cornell are using game theory to model how the competition between cancer cells could be leveraged. This is so that cancer treatments, which also take a toll on the patient’s body, can be done more sparingly and with maximized effect. They had their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences with the title Optimizing Adaptive Cancer Therapy: Dynamic Programming and Evolutionary Game Theory.
According to the paper’s senior author, Alex Vladimirsky, professor of mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences, there are many game-theoretic approaches for modeling how humans interact, how biological systems communicate, and how economic entities interact. Vladmisrsky went on to say that one could use model interactions between different types of cancer cells, which are competing to reproduce inside the tumor. He also said that if you find out exactly how they are competing, then it can be used to leverage it to fight cancer better.
Together with Mark Gluzman, the paper’s lead author, Vladmisrky, collaborated with an oncologist and co-author Jacob Scott of the Cleveland Clinic. The three used evolutionary game theory to model the interactions of three subpopulations of lung cancer cells that differentiate by their relationship to vascular overproducers (VOP), oxygen, glycolytic cells (GLY) and defectors (DEF).
In the model, previously developed by Scott, the GLY cells are anaerobic while the DEF and VOP cells use oxygen; however, VOP cells can expend extra energy to produce a protein that improves the vasculature and bring more oxygen to the cells.
Vladmirsky likened their competition to a game of rock, paper, scissors whereby a million people are vying against each other. If the majority of people choose to lay rock, a more significant number of participants may be tempted to switch to paper. As the number of those turning to paper increases, fewer people will play rock, and more will move to play scissors. As the popularity of scissors grows, the rock will be a more attractive option again.
Reference
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200423154152.htm
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