Biology subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Welter, M..
We explored the application of the adaption algorithm introduced by Secomb et. al. to artificial blood vessel networks and find that the resulting networks to not obey Murrays law. The reported analysis and visual examples document the contrast between two different types of networks. We conjecture that an interrupt of an established signaling cascade could be a hallmark of solid vascular tumors.
During the past years our group published several articles using computer simulations to address the complex interaction of tumors and the vasculature as underlying transport network. Advances in imaging and lab techniques pushed in vitro research of tumor spheroids forward and animal models as well as clinical studies provided more insights to single processes taking part in tumor growth, however, an overall picture is still missing. Computer simulations are a none-invasive option to cumulate current knowledge and form a quasi in vivo system. In our software, several known models were assembled into a multi-scale approach which allows to study length scales relevant for clinical applications.\n\nWe release our code to the public domain, together with a detailed description of the implementation and several examples, with the hope of usage and futher development by the community. Justification for the included algorithms and the biological models was obtained in previous publications, here we summarize technical aspects following the workflow of a typical simulation procedure.