March 8, 2023
Dr. Vasileios Vavourakis, Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering of the University of Cyprus will visit the Institute of Informatics & Telecommunications at NCSR Demokritos to give a talk titled In silico multiscale models to simulate cancer mechano-biology from the organ scale to the cell scale, on Friday 17 March 2023 at the Congress center of NCSR Demokritos (Building 12).
About the talk: During the last two decades, in silico modelling is becoming increasingly useful in cancer research by aiding biological experiments, making quantitative and testable predictions of cancer pathophysiology, generating, and testing new hypotheses as well as proposing new guidelines against neoplasia. In this talk I will outline our research work in in silico multiscale modelling methods. We have been developing cancer models that span from cell scale biomechanics to extracellular matrix micro-mechanics and soft tissue (macro-)mechanobiology, from macro- to micro-fluid flow mechanics, avascular and vascularised tumour growth, tumour-induced angiogenesis, and the transport of cytotoxics. I will present our efforts to theoretically investigate dynamic changes of the tumour–host microenvironment, the capacity of the in silico to simulate drug delivery in animal models, and applications we are developing towards in silico aided surgical planning. In addition, I will briefly share some ideas for future research and how to aggregate spatiotemporally varying information in such models.
Short bio: Before joining the University of Cyprus (UCY), Dr Vavourakis was a Senior Research Associate at UCL, a Visiting Lecturer and Research Associate at UCY, and a Postdoctoral fellow at FORTH. Dr Vavourakis scientific expertise is in continuum mechanics, mathematical biology, computational modelling in bioengineering, numerical methods and high-performance computing. He is leading the In Silico Modelling Group at UCY, the research interests of which span from scientific computing, systems biology, and medicine. He has published more than 40 journal papers and book chapters, and has been the PI of 5 EU and National research and innovation projects (participated in 15 projects), including a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship. He is a member of the Virtual Physiological Human Institute, the Int. Association of Computational Mechanics, the European Society of Biomechanics, and the Marie Curie Alumni Association.