Mathematics Colloquium
Bernard Fendler
Foundation Medicine
Title: Modern Approaches in Cancer Diagnostics
Date: Friday, September 16, 2022
Place and Time: LOV 101, 3:05-3:55 pm
Abstract.
Cancer will affect approximately 2 in 5 Americans in their lifetime, of which half will be at risk of premature death. Early, in the 20th century, treatments for this disease focused on blunt therapies often severely hampering the quality of life while offering only moderate increases in survival rates. Later in the 20th century continued research both on and off the bench began to identify improved therapies. However, it was not until the turn of the century--enabled by advances in in vitro techniques borrowed from the cell along with novel computational applications, did the newest therapies begin to focus on genomic diagnostics. These advances are now allowing for more personalized and improved quality-of-life treatments. In this talk, I will discuss the central hypothesis guiding these advanced treatments, the genomic technologies which have made this possible, and some of the computational analyses which are required to make it all work.