Monday, March 21, at 12:10 p.m. in CUE 419
James Glazier, Biocomplexity Institute and Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering
Indiana University
Virtual Tissue Computer Simulations of Development, Homeostasis and Developmental Diseases
The difficulty of predicting the emergent development, homeostasis and disfunction of tissues from cells’ molecular signatures limits our ability to integrate molecular and genetic information to make meaningful predictions at the organ or organism level. Virtual Tissues are an approach to constructing quantitative, predictive mechanistic models starting from cell behaviors and combining subcellular molecular kinetics models, the physical and mechanical behaviors of cells and the longer range effects of the extracellular environment. For the past 15 years, we have been developing Virtual-Tissue tools (CompuCell3D) to bridge the gap between molecule and physiological outcome. I will illustrate these approaches in: 1) the development of blood vessels and its effect on Choroidal Neovascularization (CNV) in Age-Related Macular Degeneration (the most common cause of blindness among the elderly). The AMD simulations suggest novel mechanisms for the disease beyond the growth factors commonly implicate, 2) the disorganization of normal tubular structure which occurs in Polycystic Kidney Disease, which leads to overgrowth and eventual kidney failure and 3) the sequential segmentation of vertebrate somitogenesis. I will also discuss the types of questions that Virtual Tissue simulations can address and the types of experimental data required for their development and validation.
