I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve started a new role as a Research Program Manager at the Klaus Tschira Foundation, a renowned institution supporting groundbreaking advancements in research, science communication, and education. This marks not only an exciting new chapter but also a significant shift in perspective for me, as I transition from academia into the world of strategic project and research funding management.

Changing perspectives: New opportunity as a research program manager at a German foundation

Currently, I am staying three months as a visiting postdoc in Oslo, Norway working closely together with Alvaro Köhn-Luque and Leonard Schmiester on mechanistic learning, that is the combination of mechanistic modeling and machine learning.

3 months as a visiting postdoc at the University of Oslo, Norway

On May 16, I successfully completed my second Master of Science in Medical Biometry/Biostatistics which I did part-time during my Ph.D.. My master's thesis is titled Evaluation of time-to-event data in an adaptive design with stratified randomization for many centers.

M.Sc. Medical Biometry/Biostatistics completed

My group leader Vincent Heuveline and myself have been interviewed from the Klaus Tschira Foundation about our research project Mathematics in Oncology.

Interview about our Mathematics in Oncology project

On April 19, I successfully defended my Ph.D. thesis titled Mathematical modeling of Lynch syndrome carcinogenesis. There are no words needed except THANK YOU to all the people who supported me along this way!🎓

Ph.D. completed

I am proud to be part of a new international collaborative initiative, called INDICATE, to unravel the role of the Human Leukocyte Antigen type as a cancer risk modifier in individuals with Lynch syndrome.

New initiative to INDICATE cancer risk

As part of the EKFZ Lecture Series "Focus on AI", I was invited by Prof. Dr. med. Jakob Kather to give a talk on <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://digitalhealth.tu-dresden.de/events/ekfz-lecture/">Why the combination of modeling and machine learning could be the future direction in mathematical oncology</a> at the <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://digitalhealth.tu-dresden.de">EKFZ Digital Health</a> in Dresden, Germany. In my opinion, the synergie between mathematical modeling and machine learning should be a future research direction and could bring MathOnco to the next level. Stay tuned for future steps we aim at achieving in this direction.

EKFZ Lecture: Why the combination of modeling and machine learning could be the future direction in mathematical oncology

As part of the <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mathematical-oncology.org/about">MathOnco team</a>, I have created a new feature for the official MathOnco community website: MathOnco research group highlights. In this section of the website, we provide a world-wide overview of <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mathematical-oncology.org/groups">MathOnco research groups</a>, that can be searched by keywords and geographic location.

Featuring MathOnco research group highlights on the official mathOnco community website

As announced in my last post, I joined the MathOnco team as an associate editor for the official <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mathematical-oncology.org/">MathOnco community website</a>. We have asked the MathOnco community to fill out our <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://thisweekmathonco.substack.com/p/this-week-in-mathonco-191">survey</a> on the MathOnco weekly newsletter and the website to see what MathOnco folks are most interested in. Now, I&apos;ve written an <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mathematical-oncology.org/blog/interim-report-survey.html">interim report for the MathOnco blog on the survey results</a> with some demographics of our community and future directions for the community resources!

An interim report on the MathOnco community survey

I am really looking forward to working together with the MathOnco team on the official <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mathematical-oncology.org/">MathOnco website</a>. Thank you for the very warm welcome! As a first step, we have prepared a <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://thisweekmathonco.substack.com/p/this-week-in-mathonco-191">survey</a> on the MathOnco weekly newsletter and the website to see what MathOnco folks are most interested in. Fill it out and be part of shaping the future of the MathOnco community!

With the start of 2022, I have joined the MathOnco team as assistant editor for the MathOnco website

Aysel Ahadova and myself, we have written a blog post on the official <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mathematical-oncology.org/blog/mathematics-for-deciphering-molecular-pathways.html">MathOnco blog</a> to describe the importance of mathematical oncology in studying inherited colorectal cancer. We focus on the most common inherited colorectal cancer syndrome, Lynch syndrome, and give insights into our research projects here in Heidelberg, Germany.

Using mathematics for deciphering molecular pathways of carcinogenesis in hereditary cancer syndromes: Original perspective

Our collaborative initiative in Heidelberg which started with my PhD in 2017 now became an official 3-year research project funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation. The aim of the collaborative project <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://emcl.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/research/projects/mathematical-oncology">Mathematics in Oncology</a> is to understand tumor initiation, evolution, and immunology by means of mathematical modeling and thereby find approaches to potentially prevent hereditary cancer in the future.

New 3-year research project Mathematics in Oncology in Heidelberg

The wonderful Isabel Lacurie from the HITS Communication team has written a blog post in <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://scilogs.spektrum.de/via-data/i-like-interdisciplinary-research-or-how-to-combine-mathematics-and-medicine/">SciLogs Via Data Spektrum.de</a> about my interdisciplinary work in MathOnco. To inform others how interdisciplinarity can work and that communication is really essential is a message that is to the bottom of my heart. Thank you Isabel for this amazing collaboration. Please read and share. You can really make a difference for any interdisciplinary work.

I like Interdisciplinary research – or how to combine mathematics and medicine

My <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://doi.org/10.1002/cso2.1020">second first-author paper</a> is out in Computational and Systems Oncology. In addition to the Kronecker model, we, researchers from Heidelberg and Leipzig, have developed a computational model for the biological processes occurring within single crypts, small entities of the colon, during early cancer development in Lynch syndrome. The computer simulations allow to unravel the otherwise invisible cancer formation process.

Computational Oncology: Exploring the origin of colon cancer

This blog post explains how to build an ordinary differential equation system using the quite cool Kronecker structure to model multiple pathways of carcinogenesis for arbitrary types of cancer. It is based on <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008970">our paper in PLOS Computational Biology, 2021</a> and was originally published on the <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://mathematical-oncology.org/blog/modeling-carcinogenesis-using-kronecker-structure.html">MathOnco blog</a>. Based on this blog post and our paper, <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://AlexanderZeilmann.de">Alexander Zeilmann</a> and myself, we designed the <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://thisweekmathonco.substack.com/p/this-week-in-mathonco-166">CoverArt</a> for the official Mathematical Oncology Newsletter, Week 166.

Behind the Paper – Modeling Multiple Pathways of Carcinogenesis using the Kronecker Structure

My <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008970">first first-author paper</a> is finally out in PLOS Computational Biology. With our amazing collaborators from EMCL, HITS, University Hospital Leipzig and ATB, we have developed a modular mathematical framework to model different molecular pathways of carcinogenesis based on a system of ordinary differential equations. The model makes use of the so-called Kronecker product, a specific structure which allows for a thorough mathematical analysis and medical interpretation. For the published paper, we focused on colorectal cancer development in Lynch syndrome with simulation results that are in concordance with current clinical tumor data.

New publication in PLOS Computational Biology: Mathematical modeling of multiple pathways in colorectal carcinogenesis using dynamical systems with Kronecker structure

I was part of a study initiated by our collaboration partners at <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://atb-heidelberg.de/">ATB</a> to explore new ways of cancer prevention and therapies. Together, we developed and used a novel algorithm, which quantitatively evaluates the mutations in MSI tumor cells. We could also show for the first time that the immune system monitors the tumor during its development and immediately eliminates cancer cells with highly immunogenic neoantigens. strongly supports the hypothesis that immunogenic cancer cell clones may be attacked and potentially eradicated by the host’s immune system and encourages the concept of cancer-preventive vaccines that may in the future help to reduce MSI tumor risk. The <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18514-5">study</a> was recently published in Nature Communications.

New publication in Nature Communications: The shared neoantigen landscape of MSI cancers suggests immunoediting during tumor evolution

In frame of the <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://emcl.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/research/projects/mathematical-oncology">Mathematics in Oncology</a> collaborative initiative, we systematically analyzed data from published studies, public databases and population-based patient cohorts in order to perform cost and efficiency analyses of BRAF mutation testing in Lynch syndrome diagnostics. We concluded that BRAF mutation testing led to a high risk of missing Lynch syndrome individuals and increased costs at age younger than 50 years. We therefore suggest to directly refer MSI CRC patients younger than 50 years to genetic counseling without BRAF testing. The <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ijc.33273">study</a> was recently published in the International Journal of Cancer. We have published a blog post on <a class="link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://emcl.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/news/ongoing/news-2020/news-2020-01">EMCL News</a>.

All Posts

Changing perspectives: New opportunity as a research program manager at a German foundation

3 months as a visiting postdoc at the University of Oslo, Norway

M.Sc. Medical Biometry/Biostatistics completed

Interview about our Mathematics in Oncology project

Ph.D. completed