Speaker
Description
In immune-oncology, the lifecycle, engagement, and cytotoxicity of natural or engineered T cells are important dynamical processes that need to be quantified to better understand cancer resistance and susceptibility to immunotherapy. We investigate the process of naïve and memory T cells engaging antigen-presenting cells to be activated to proliferate and differentiate to effector cells. In addition, the model considers the formation of conjugates of effector T cells and target (cancer) cells, resulting in either target cell death or effector T cell inactivation. To capture the dynamics in both small and large populations we apply a stochastic and a deterministic approach. We also aim to characterize the resistance of the target cell population by focusing on the mutated target cells. The assumptions enable that mutated target cells are more likely to prevent from forming a conjugation with effector cells and subsequently avoid being lethally hit. Our model will help to illustrate whether the mutation of target cells can result in failure of immunotherapy.
