This special edition of the PerMedCoE webinar series features speakers who were awarded poster prizes at the PerMedCoE Summer School 2023. Find out more about our speakers and their research.

• Towards Tailored Cancer Therapies: Robust platform for drug testing in patient-specific Boolean models - Viviam Bermúdez

• Computational modelling of High Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer (HGSOC) - Marco Fariñas

• Dissecting cellular communication in the tumour microenvironment through multiscale dynamical modelling - Malvina Marku

About the speaker

Viviam Bermúdez is a PhD candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, specialising in Boolean models. Her academic journey began in general biology back in her home country, Venezuela, at Simón Bolívar University. Then, she hopped over to Norway for a one-year student exchange, where she unexpectedly found herself staying longer to complete a master’s degree in molecular cell biology – diving deep into systems biology and cell modelling. Now, in her Computational Cancer Biology PhD, she combines machine learning and modelling to address complex challenges of precision medicine. Beyond her coding skills, she also has green fingers, so she finds peace caring for her plants during her free time. Looking ahead, she aspires to contribute to the field of precision medicine through her PhD project and continue exploring the fascinating world of “digital-twins” – without forgetting the ethical side of things.

Marco Fariñas, originally from Ponferrada, in north-western Spain, is an enthusiastic nature lover who enjoys spending free time outdoors. His academic journey began with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology at the Complutense University of Madrid. Following his interest for cellular and molecular biology, he moved to Trondheim, Norway, where he pursued a Master’s degree at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). During this period, Marco did his thesis focusing on Boolean modelling of macrophage polarisation and its relevance to acute COVID-19. This research was conducted under the guidance of Martin Kuiper within the DrugLogics group. Following the completion of the Master’s program, Marco moved to Barcelona and joined Marta Cascante’s research group, at Barcelona University. There, he delved into the intricate metabolic alterations triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection. In his latest pursuit, Marco returned to Trondheim to start his PhD journey at NTNU, under the supervision of Kaisa Lehti. His research leverages Boolean modelling to explore the dynamics of the tumour microenvironment and its influence on the aggressiveness of high-grade serous ovarian cancer.

Malvina Marku studied her undergraduate degree in Physics at the University of Tirana, Albania, where she pursued her MSci project in the field of Nonlinear Dynamics, studying the qualitatively universal behaviour of recursive systems. As a PhD student on Computational Physics at the University of Tirana, her PhD thesis focused on mathematical modelling of regulatory networks and inference methods of network reaction rates. She joined Pancaldi’s lab at the Cancer Research Center of Toulouse as a postdoc where she is currently working on multi-scale dynamical modelling of the tumour microenvironment. The research is focused on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL) microenvironment, and the crucial role of the cancer cell-immune cell interaction in defining the cancer cell survival. Her main interest is in applying dynamical modelling and networks theory to study the dynamics and emerging behaviour of complex biological systems, and to gain a deeper understanding of systems’ evolution from the molecular network perspective. She is interested in using computational models that are able to capture emerging biological behaviour and evolving patterns in spatially structured tumours for enabling more accurate and clinically relevant predictions regarding disease course and treatment outcome.

Who is this course for?

This webinar is part of PerMedCoE webinar series and is open for anyone interested in PerMedCoE products and developments, as well as for researchers in the life sciences, bioinformaticians and life sciences software developers.

The goal of PerMedCoE is to provide an efficient and sustainable entry point to the HPC/Exascale-upgraded methodology to translate omics analyses into actionable models of cellular functions of medical relevance.

Outcomes

By the end of this webinar, you will be able to:

• Describe how Boolean models can be customised into patient-specific models
• Describe data-driven methodology to investigate cancer cell – host cell interactions

This webinar, hosted on Zoom Webinar, is free to attend, but you need to register for a place beforehand, using the 'Register' button. Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email with a link to join the webinar.