Elizabeth Sarapata

Harvey Mudd College Mathematics 2013

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Thesis Proposal: Title of Proposal
Thesis Advisor: Prof. Lisette de Pillis
Second Reader: Prof. Ami Radunskaya
E-Mail: liz_sarapata@hmc.edu

A Comparison and Catalog of Intrinsic Tumor Growth Models

Determining growth functions and parameters is a problem that is faced by anyone building population models. My thesis intends to create a catalog of intrinsic tumor growth functions for continuous ODE systems by determining tumor growth functions and parameters for mice and humans for at least 10 different types of cancers, including ovarian, breast, prostate and renal cancers. If time permits, this project will also include CD47 treatment on 8 of the types of tumor. This project involves parameter fitting and curve fitting techniques, parameter sensitivity analysis techniques such as Latin hypercube sampling, statistics, and dynamical systems analysis.