Agent-based modeling for biological system

Dawn Walker (Dawn Wood), Sun Tao, Alan Waterworth, Jiujiang Zhu, Phil McMinn, Simon Coakley, Nik Georgopoulos, Steven Wood, Andrew Leathard

The aim of the Epitheliome Project is to develop a computational model that is able to predict the social behaviour of cells in epithelial tissues.

Epithelial tissues form the barriers between us and the outside world - our skin, the lining of all our body cavities (mouth, lungs, cervix, bladder, prostate gland, our intestines). They are very thin - typically about 0.5 mm thick, perhaps 10 cells - but have specialised functions. Key to epithelial behaviour is the protective barrier function coupled with enormous repair potential. Thus skin prevents us dehydrating and protects us from disease organisms, the bladder epithelium (the urothelium) is watertight and prevents urine damage or contamination of circulating blood,  the lining of our intestines protects us from potentially damaging ingested material (eg bacteria) while selectively absorbing nutrients. It is not surprising giving the role of epithelia and their proliferative potential that all cancers, other than those originating from haemopoietic and mesenchymal cells, originate in epithelial tissues, which are relatively simple.

Epithelial tissues are obviously important - we can't live without them! They are also relatively simple - they contain a limited number of different cell types, no blood vessels, no nerve endings. They are the source of important clinical problems - cancer, wound healing, diabetic ulcers, skin graft contraction. The ultimate aim of our modelling is to better understand these problems, and thus be able to do something about them.

All the tissues in our bodies (to be more general, all multi-cellular creatures) self-assemble. The 'rules' for doing this are in each cell - in the genetic material. There is no information at a higher level of organisation than the individual cell, so all the organisation in tissues and organs and organisms is an 'emergent property' of the interaction of large numbers of individual cells - 10¹³ in a human. That is what we are interested in - how does this social interaction of the cells produce properly functioning and structured creatures?

There is a lot more about the project on the Epitheliome Project web pages - models, publications, and links to other interesting sites.