My life has been devoted to the development of mathematical methods to guide decision-making in medicine. After many years of persistent interdisciplinary effort we, biomathematicians, see success in convincing the scientific world that mathematics is relevant to biology and medicine.
Our efforts have led to the development of a virtual cancer patient, which comprises mathematical models of disease and physiological processes, and can be specifically adapted to serve as the virtual “double” of a real patient.
The virtual patient has been used to personalize treatment for a patient with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. Genetic information and data on the biochemical activity and cell replication of the patient’s metastasis was used to adapt the “generic” virtual patient into his virtual “double”. We then “treated” the virtual “double” mathematically to identify an improved drug regimen for the real patient.
When the regimen we identified was administered to the real patient, his adverse effects disappeared and his disease was stabilized.
I believe that virtual patients can ease the suffering of many cancer patients around the world. Achieving this, means gathering people with an open mind, vision and a true belief in human potential.
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