Faculty members from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Washington University in St. Louis are collaborating on a National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant, examining ways to control cancer treatments and the spread of infectious diseases.
SIUE Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Dr. Urszula Ledzewicz and Wash U. Associate Professor Heinz Schaettler, from the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, recently were awarded the grant—as principal investigators from their respective institutions—to focus on applications of optimal control theory, a field bridging mathematics and engineering to address problems arising in biomedicine.
Ledzewicz, an SIUE distinguished research professor, received approximately $202,000 for SIUE’s portion of the project. She has worked with Schaettler, her husband, on projects for many years. In their past research they have focused their research on mathematical models for various types of cancer treatments. This work will continue under the new grant, aiming at more insights on cancer therapies, especially for combinations of traditional and novel approaches.
These treatments include chemotherapy or radiotherapy targeting cancer cells; immunotherapy, which bolsters the immune response to fighting cancer cells, and anti-angiogenic therapy, responsible for blocking cancer blood vessel growth, thus incapacitating tumors. Through optimal control, the two will analyze the effectiveness of various protocols for combination therapies in the fight against cancer.