eScience in Biomedical Ingineering Research: Cancer Modeling and Simulation

NAHUEL OLAIZ; ESTEBAN MOCSKOS; MARIANO PEREZ RODRIGUEZ; LUCAS COLOMBO; ALEJANDRO SOBA; GONZÁLEZ GRACIELA; LUIS NUÑEZ; MARCELO RISK; GUILLERMO MARSHALL

Workshop; eScience Workshop 2007; 2007

Here we describe an application in biomedical engineering. In cancer tumor drug treatment nothing can reach tumor cells without passing through the vessel wall and the interstitial matrix. Physicochemical and physiological barriers could hinder the main transport mechanisms, thus leading to heterogeneous therapeutic agent accumulation and some cells remaining untreated. Use of electric currents in chemotherapy greatly enhances drug transport and delivery. Cancer electrochemical treatment consists in the passage of an electric current, whether direct (EChT) or micro-/nano-pulsed (ECT), through two or more electrodes inserted locally in the tumor tissue. Extreme pH changes at tissue level (EChT) or the creation of membrane porous channels at the cell level (facilitating penetration of anticancer drugs into the cell, ECT), are the main tumor regression mechanisms. We study tumor drug transport for cancer treatment with nanoparticles (loaded with therapeutic agents) during EChT and ECT through a combined modeling methodology: in vivo with BALB/c mice bearing a subcutaneous tumor, in vitro with multi-cellular spheroids and collagen gels, and in silicon using the Nernst-Planck, Poisson and Navier-Stokes equations for ion transport, electric field distribution and fluid flow, respectively. The main goal is to find nano-particle/drug combinations, electric field intensities and pulse frequencies that optimize tumor treatment. In this interdisciplinary approach we use I-labs web based for confocal and fluorescent microscopy image processing, and HPC computing on a low latency cluster under MS CCS platform. Preliminary results suggest that using nano charged drugs and tuned electrical fields, significantly increases drug.