CIM Seminar

Abstract: Cancer cell migration is a driving mechanism behind invasion and metastasis in solid cancers, and is the primary reason for treatment failure. While screening large libraries for drugs against cell viability is common, it is less common to screen for drugs reducing cell motility. We designed a method for joint estimation of the proliferation rate and diffusion constant of adherent in vitro cell cultures using end-point images only.

The hypothesis was that cancer cells with low motility and high proliferation would create clusters, whereas cells with high motility and low proliferation would be more uniformly distributed. The proliferation rate and diffusion constant could be estimated using an agent-based model and approximate Bayesian computation. The method was validated on simulated data and a set of time-series images, and then applied on a large high-content dataset containing 42 glioblastoma cell cultures each treated with 94 drugs.

The method could accurately measure the diffusion constant if the net proliferation rate were sufficiently high. A majority of the drugs either increased or decreased the diffusion constant. Three drugs, dasatinib, pitavastatin and paclitaxel significantly decreased the diffusion constant. The proposed method is promising for joint estimation of cell motility and viability. The method can be applied to any dataset with adherent in vitro end point images without incurring any additional experimental costs.

The seminar will both be held physically and via Zoom. A link to the Zoom meeting will be posted at the morning of the event on the CIM mail list and when registering to the event. The 40 first to register to the event will also be given a free lunch.

Registration to the event.