A Step Toward Optimization of Cancer Therapeutics [Chronobiological Investigations]

An integrative physiology model has been designed, which takes into account the cell proliferation at the level of a population of cells by age-structured partial differential equations (PDEs), its control by cell cycle proteins, and the control of these molecular mechanisms by the circadian system, designed as a network of coupled oscillators also described by ODEs. Cancer growth and response to therapy by anticancer drugs have been shown to be dependent on circadian clock inputs. This multiscale modeling framework will provide clinicians with a theoretical tool to bridge the gap between the pharmaceutical clinical control level and the molecular pharmacological hidden level of drug action.