Agnieszka Truszkowska
University of Alabama in Huntsville, AL·Biomedical Engineering·Early-career
Cancer becomes deadliest when it spreads, a process called metastasis, in which tumor cells travel through the blood or lymph to start new tumors in healthy organs. Tumor cells in the bloodstream, called circulating tumor cells (CTCs), often travel in clumps.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Engineering
Computer Science
- Topics
metastasis
circulating tumor cells
CTC clusters
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2031
What they work on
- Build a computational model of how circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters move through the bloodstream, including their surroundings, interactions with other cells, and cell-to-cell signaling.
- Develop a kinetic model of CTC cluster metabolism that combines several experimental datasets using statistical methods, machine learning and information theory, and use machine learning to find unknown parameters and missing reactions.
- Combine the movement and metabolism models into an open-source platform that runs "what-if" scenarios on how clusters form, resist immune attack, and differ across primary cancers.
More about the research
Some evidence suggests these clusters resist the immune system better than single cells, but other evidence suggests clustering barely affects spread. This project uses computer modeling and artificial intelligence (AI) to sort out what CTC clusters do, from entering the bloodstream to leaving it at a new site.
Why it matters
By predicting how tumor-cell clusters survive in the blood, this modeling could point experimenters toward weak spots in these clusters. That could eventually support new ways to diagnose and treat metastatic cancer, especially approaches aimed at CTC clusters. It could also help predict metastasis from the state of the original tumor.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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The school
University of Alabama in Huntsville: 4 labs on PI Pages, $154M a year on research, 45 research doctorates a year.
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