Control for Chemotherapy with Drug Resistance
A few years ago, I was in a collaboration that examined the role of
drug resistance in the evolution of cancer subject to chemotherapeutic
agent(s); see the past research lnk in the menu for more inofrmation. Recently, I became interested in extending the ideas behind the model into an optimal control problem. The cost functional balances the quick elimination of all cancer cells against the toxicity levels of the drug. The model itself considers the consequences of drug resistance. The governing systems of nonlinear differential equations is an extension (and hopefully an improvement) of my earlier collaboration.
A talk on this subject will be given in January 2008 in Washington, D.C. Future work will include examining the optimal control problem for treatment scheduling, and the explicit inclusion of other factors and treatment modalities in the model.