People

Paul Macklin, Ph.D., MMCL Leader

Education

• Ph.D. in Mathematics, University of California-Irvine, 2007
• M.S. in Industrial & Applied Mathematics, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, 2003
• B.A. in Mathematics & German (minors: physics, economics), University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1999

Selected Honors

• U. of Texas Health Science Center SBMI John P. McGovern Award for Outstanding Teaching, 2009
• UC-Irvine Department of Mathematics Kovalesky Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Award, 2007
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 1999-2000 & 2001-2003
• U. of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor's Scholar, summa cum laude, honors program, 1999
• Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, 1998

Recent positions

• Co-Founder and Co-Director, Consortium for Integrative Computational Oncology (CICO), U. of Southern California, May 2011-present
• Assistant Professor of Research Medicine, Center for Applied Molecular Medicine, U. of Southern California, Aug. 2011-present
• Lecturer (permament staff--UK version of tenure-track), Division of Mathematics, U. of Dundee, Feb. 2010-Aug. 2011
• Assistant Professor, School of Biomedical Informatics (formerly School of Health Information Sciences), U. of Texas Health Science Center-Houston, July 2007-Feb. 2010

Research Interests

Dr. Macklin has over 10 years' experience (since 2001) in modeling cancer using continuum, discrete, and multiscale techniques. He has been particularly focused on developing methods to rigorously calibrate mathematical and computational models to patient clinical data, with the hope of moving decades of modeling advances from the blackboard to the clinic to improve patient care. Much of this work has been applied to ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS: a precursor to invasive breast cancer), which has allowed significant model validation. More recently, Dr. Macklin has begun applying these techniques to prostate cancer, with an emphasis on bone metastasis. In his decade of cancer research, Macklin has worked closely with pathologists, radiologists, surgeons, biologists, mathematicians and engineers in exciting, multidisciplinary teams.

For his M.S. and Ph.D. work, he developed a sophisticated computational model of tumor growth as a moving boundary problem, using the level set method (to represent the tumor-host boundary) and high-accuracy ghost fluid methods (to solve nonlinear reaction-diffusion equations on complex moving domains). Significant advances included state-of-the-art, high-order efficient numerical solvers, the first incorporation of the necrotic core dynamics into continuum tumor growth, simulations of dynamic, heterogeneous microenvironments, and coupling of tumor biomechanics, hypoxia, and angiogenesis into a single simulation framework.

More recently, Macklin has developed a cutting-edge agent-based (individual-based) model that can be directly calibrated to patient immunohistochemistry and morphometric measures from hematoxylin and eosin (H & E) stains. The agent model can be straightforwardly coupled with intracellular and intercellular signaling models, as well as with pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PKPD) models of therapeutic response. Dr. Macklin is presently coupling this discrete model to his earlier continuum model in a true hybrid modeling framework, which will combine the efficiency of the moving boundary formulation (capable of simulating months of growth) with the detail and patient-specific calibration of the discrete model.

CV: Curriculum Vitae (June 18, 2012)
Contact: Click here

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Unnamed Scientist, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Student

Education

• Ph.D. in Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, or Engineering

Selected Honors

• A strong history of multidisciplinary research in mathematical and computational biology

Short Bio and Research Interests

The ideal student will have a strong background in computational biology in C/C++ or a comparable language. Experience in cancer biology is a definite plus. The best candidate will have a passion for moving cancer modeling from the blackboard to the clinic.

Please see the job posting here!

Website: MathCancer.org

Time in MMCL: Starting late 2011

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Edwin F. Juárez Rosales • Ph.D. student • electrical engineering (control systems group)

Mr. Rosales is a second-year Ph.D. student at the Ming Hsieh department of Electrical Engineering at USC. He was born and raised in El Salvador, and he earned his B.S. in EE from Texas A&M University. His research interest include developing a compartmental model for B-cell lymphoma and applying control theory to regulate the immune system. In his spare time, he loves traveling around the world to find churches to pray, mountains to hike, and places to dance salsa.

Time in MMCL: September 2012-present

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Jasmine McAllister • B.A. neuroscience • B.S. mathematics, economics

Ms. McAllister is in her second year as an undergraduate neuroscience B.A. and economics / mathematics B.S. student. Her academic interests include biology, psychology, and mathematics. Outside of the classroom, she is involved in Undergraduate Student Government, leadership fraternity DOZ, and enjoys cooking and hiking.

Time in MMCL: May 2012-present

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Kellie Spector • B.S. student • mathematics, pre-med

Ms. Spector is math major/pre med student and a junior at USC, from Simi Valley California. She loves traveling and would love to have been to all the continents by the time she graduates.

Time in MMCL: September 2012-present

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Liwen Hu • M.S. student • computer science

Mr. Hu is a first-year Master student at the department of Computer Science at USC, who joins us as a temporary developer under CICO to push forward user-friendly graphical interfaces for 3-D agent-based models, visualization, and other tasks that help us improve our scientific workflow. He was born and raised in China, and he earned his B.S. in CS from Zhejiang University, China. Hu's research areas include Computer Graphics(Global Illumination, Texture Transfer, Crowd Animation, Fluid Simulation) and General-purpose CPU(CUDA). His hobbies are photography and graphics design, and he used to be a professional wedding photographer in China when he was undergraduate.

Time in MMCL: March 2013-present

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