How does brain cancer develop on the cellular level?

By .
Backed by Cindy Wu and Glenn Willen
BiologyMedicine
Open Access
$21
Raised of $5,000 Goal
1%
Ended on 10/11/13
Campaign Ended
  • $21
    pledged
  • 1%
    funded
  • Finished
    on 10/11/13

About This Project

Ask the Scientists

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What is the context of this research?

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the aggressive brain cancer that we are researching with our human virtual (in silico) cell. We are developing a novel technique for diagnosing GBM and estimating how a potential anti-cancer drug impacts a patient’s outcome, using in silico (virtual) methods. Approximately one out of four people diagnosed with cancer will get a brain cancer. Glioblastoma Multiforme is the most aggressive of these brain cancers. It costs about 500 million dollars to bring an anti-cancer drug to market and takes about ten years of research and clinical trials.

Approach:
Phase I. The human virtual cell is constructed using a variety of computerized programs and hardware.
Phase II. A computerized signature is found through comparisons of GBM in healthy and diseased data by a simulation of all the biochemical and other processes in the cell. This signature is used for a proper diagnosis and understanding of all the metabolic and other processes patterns in GBM.
Phase III. Because we are investigating all of the metabolic and other cellular processes, we will be able to determine what happens exactly when a new metabolite or drug enters the cellular system.

Goals:
Phase I. Construct the in silico virtual human cell model.
Phase II. Using GBM genomic and clinical data, distinguish between the healthy and cancerous states by creating a genomic and clinical signature of the metabolic and other processes.
Phase III. Introduce potential metabolites and anti-cancer drugs using an in silico approach.

Benefits:
• Proper diagnosis of GBM as well as other brain cancers
• Huge cost savings for drug discovery

How You Can Help:
Please consider making a Donation to fund this ground-breaking research project. In addition, visit my Resources page, which lists websites, videos, articles, support groups, and conferences where you can learn more about brain cancer and how advances in computing and translational medicine have the potential to accelerate new discoveries and develop new treatments for brain cancer. We're working together to improve prevention, detection, and treatment. Join us!

What is the significance of this project?

In general, researchers have restricted themselves to metabolic tissue studies not to single cell simulations, although Palsson and others have built metabolic simulations of a human nerve in Alzheimer's disease.

We are looking at more than just metabolism. We are looking at the whole cell with all its processes. We are incorporating human data from glioblastoma samples which has never been done. It's not a risky project, but it is innovative. Recently huge amounts of genomic and clinical data have been made publically available.

This will be the first project that shows a disease developing in a human single cell with its processes at work. In particular, I have a personal interest in glioblastoma, as well as a professional interest, in seeing new drugs for the disease. Glioblastoma has a high mortality rate; out of 18,500 cases a year, approximately 13,000 patients die.

What are the goals of the project?

We need computer cloud time for the computational aspects of the project and we also want to build a small cluster in order to make tests that would not need to take up cloud time. we are looking for free or highly discounted parts to build the cluster. In particular, I have 600 hours of Amazon cloud time. So, the funds will contribute toward the calculations and the building of the cluster.

Budget

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$3000 will be used to build the mini cluster--it's amazing what you can build with used parts and loaned parts! A mini-cluster may be built without substantial funding. The $2000 will go toward either more Amazon cloud time or Rackspace cloud time. I'm still investigating the two.

Meet the Team

 .
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PhD Student at UC Santa Cruz

Affiliates

Biomolecular Engineering Department at UC Santa Cruz Jack Baskin School of Engineering
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Team Bio

I was born in La Jolla, California. I have a B.A. in Physics and Astronomy from Mount Holyoke College, an M.A. in Applied Mathematics from UC San Diego and a Ph.D. in Number Theory from UC San Diego. I became interested in bioinformatics and systems biology after a postdoc at UC Berkeley, Mathematics Department. I returned to school after ten years to understand "how a biologist thinks about biology," and received a M.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology. Recently, I received a M.S. in Bioinformatics. Working on my dream project (described in my project proposal) now.

When I'm not pursuing science, I love to watch independent films and listen to music from around the world.

Project Backers

  • 2Backers
  • 1%Funded
  • $21Total Donations
  • $10.50Average Donation
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