Several Medical Physics Graduate Program faculty members were awarded a Duke Cancer Institute (DCI) pilot grant for their project "Multiscale digital twins of head and neck tumors to interrogate cancer dynamics and treatment resistance." The project is led by multiple principal investigators Kyle Lafata, PhD; Casey Lee, PhD; and Megan Russ, PhD (Department of Radiology) and has interdisciplinary co-investigator expertise, including Paul Segars, PhD (Department of Radiology); Tammara Watts, MD, PhD (Department of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences); and Jian-Guo Liu, PhD (Department of Mathematics).
This research will focus on developing multiscale digital twins – patient-specific, virtual representations of tumors and their microenvironment – of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma to better understand population dynamics, cancer biology and treatment resistance. The team will integrate imaging, pathology and molecular data from both preclinical and clinical sources to parameterize mathematical models that simulate tumor biology and response to radiation therapy. The project combines both mouse models and clinical trial data (NCT01908504) with advanced mathematical techniques such as level-set dynamics, stochastic analysis and Bayesian inference.
Ultimately, these digital twins will be used to simulate and optimize treatment strategies, including adaptive dose de-escalation for HPV+ head and neck cancer, offering a computational alternative to animal testing and a new direction for precision oncology.