Understanding the physiology and pathology of human organs necessitates understand about cell biology. Cells constitute the building blocks of all living things. Cells provide structure for the body, carry out specialized functions, produce/uptake biochemical cues, convert nutrients into energy, and can make copies of themselves. In this regard, modelling cells and tissue mechanics is an emerging field in biomedical sciences. Thus far we have established organ-/tissue-scale in silico models while we are very active developing novel cell-scale, agent-based models (ABM) to understand tissue dynamics as a result of interplay of its individual cells.
We are members of the BioDynaMo consortium (https://biodynamo.org/team/consortium/), an international, interdisciplinary group of investigators working for the development of a a modular platform for high-performance agent-based simulation.
Moreover, we are active in research initiatives that promote application of cell-scale in silico models in cancer biology, wound healing, radiation therapy, tissue engineering and skin regeneration. For example, ISMG is involved in the PLASMA-TReatS-TUMORS project, whose main objective is to explore the effect of cold plasma in cancer therapy by elucidating on the mechanisms of plasma-mediated anticancer effects. This is an ongoing collaboration of ISMG with Dr C. Anastassiou, Prof G.E. Georghiou (UCY) and Prof P. Svarnas (University of Patras).
Relevant works:
Breitwieser et al. 2021. Bioinformatics, doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btab649
Gazeli et al. 2021 7th International Workshop on Plasma for Cancer Treatment, Barcelona, Spain
Comparison of microscopy images of tumour spheroids (at different initial cancer mass densities) an snapshots of in silico simulations (through agent-based modelling). Details about the model setup can be found in our Bioinformatics journal paper, https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btab649, while in vitro data were obtained from published data (Source: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130348).
MDA-MB-231 development simulation animation, which replicates in situ cancer growth, and qualitative comparison of the model against an in vitro tumour spheroid – also referred as tumouroid – model.
Agent-based model (ABM) simulation example that demonstrates neurite outgrowth of a cluster of bipolar neurons (or nerve cells).
In silico animation of a wound-healing assay experiment on a 2D culture of fibroblasts after scraping. For the in silico, we have utilized our in-house ABM simulation project: invitro_neuro (https://bitbucket.org/vasvav/invitro_neuro/wiki/Home). Other relevant animation demos of cancer cell migration scratch assays can be found in our YouTube channel here (https://youtu.be/8N982C0u44o) and here (https://youtu.be/SdSF0EJb0FA).
