In this talk, I will first summarize the results from the paper Weil et al. (2017) “Tumor microtubes convey resistance to surgical lesions and chemotherapy in gliomas.” In this paper, they perform a series of experiments on glioblastoma tumors motivated by the discovery of tumor microtubes (TMs). TMs are thin long protrusions extending from the glioblastoma cell body which help the cancer grow, spread, and facilitate communication between glioma cells. Weil et al. (2017) implanted glioblastoma tumors into mice and tested various treatments (surgery, surgery with targeted therapy, surgery with anti-inflammation treatment, and chemotherapy). They find that TMs help with the faster and denser tumor repopulation in the lesion area. Furthermore, inhibiting the TMs slows down tumor growth significantly.

In the second part of the talk, I will show how the experiments outlined in the paper can be modelled with partial differential equations. The effects from the wound healing response and TMs are simplified but are accounted for in the model. The numerical simulations reveal good agreement with the experimental observations and can capture the experimental trends after treatment application. Based on these results, the wound healing mechanisms as well as TM dynamics are key in explaining the experimental observations.