Tutorial sessions

An introduction to cancer modeling and control is followed by a description of the design of targeted drug therapies for cancer treatment. Recent efforts have been directed towards understanding why such therapies demonstrate very little anti-tumor activity for certain cancers. A class of tyrosine kinase inhibitors that target human epidermal growth factor receptors (HER) is unexpectedly inefficient in some cancers. A mathematical model for use in the study and treatment of cancers is described for the HER signaling pathway that agrees with the existing data over large time intervals. The mathematical model is used to understand the effects of applying certain drugs to such cancers and to determine a “steering-based” treatment scheme for cancers that over express.