Stochasticity and plasticity in human health and disease

Date: Friday 4th of July at 11:00 in Askja, room N-132

Title: Stochasticity and plasticity in human health and disease

Speaker: Dr. Sidhartha Goyal, Tenure-Stream Faculty, Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Canada

• Stochastic clonal dynamics of patient derived colorectal cancer make a case for (almost) all cancer cells to possess a capacity to become drug tolerant.
• Transcriptome analysis of fetal lung suggests redundancy in developmental lineages. Are they a feature or a bug?
• Highlight the power of high-dim data to provide a strong base for predictive modeling in biology.

Abstract: In this talk, I will take a statistical approach to biology with two examples. First, on tumor dynamics I will focus on tumor relapse after drug treatment. Here we analyze stochastic clonal dynamics of patient derived colorectal cancer and make a case for (almost) all cancer cells to possess a capacity to become drug tolerant. This work points to novel therapeutic opportunities. Second, transcriptome analysis of fetal lung development. Here we show redundancy in early developmental lineages. Are they a feature or a bug? Overall, I hope to highlight the power of high-dim data to provide a strong base for predictive modeling in biology.

Bio: Sidhartha Goyal is a faculty in the Department of Physics, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. His primary interest lies in developing mathematical and computational frameworks to quantify
and uncover the rules that govern the structure of large populations of cells (cell-to-cell heterogeneity)
and subsequently their fate, from large microbial populations to stem cell differentiation and tissue regeneration to tumor progression. Sid got his PhD in Physics at Princeton and then moved to KITP, UC Santa Barbara for a postdoc. He got his first degree(s) in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombayand Bioengineering from UWashington.