Dissertation

Modelling the role of cytotoxic T lymphocytes in tumour regression

Immunotherapies for cancer are an emerging class of therapeutic strategies which aim to treat cancer via augmentation of the immune system.

Author

Beck, R.J.

Date

22 June 2021

Links

Thesis in Leiden Repository

Immunotherapies for cancer are an emerging class of therapeutic strategies which aim to treat cancer via augmentation of the immune system. Despite significant success of immunotherapies in the past decade, not all patients will respond to these treatments and the reasons why immunotherapies are successful in some patients, but not others, remain incompletely understood. The immune response to cancer is a complex, multistage process, and mathematical and computational models are a useful tool for understanding such complex systems. In this thesis, I develop mathematical and computational models of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs), who are key players in the immune system due to their ability to recognise, destroy, and provide long lasting protection against malignant or virally infected cells.

• agent-based model (abm)
• cancer
• cytotoxic t lymphocytes (ctls)
• immunotherapy
• ordinary differential equation (ode) model