Modelling Optimization and Control of Biomedical Systems

6 An Integrated Platform for the Study of Leukaemia

Eirini G. Velliou¹, Maria Fuentes‐Gari², Ruth Misener³, Eleni Pefani⁴, Nicki Panoskaltsis⁵, Athanasios Mantalaris⁶, Michael C. Georgiadis⁷, and Efstratios N. Pistikopoulos⁸

¹ Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, UK

² Process Systems Enterprise (PSE), London, UK

³ Department of Computing, Imperial College London, UK

⁴ Clinical Pharmacology Modelling and Simulation, GSK, UK

⁵ Department of Medicine, Imperial College London, UK

⁶ Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, UK

⁷ Laboratory of Process Systems Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thesaloniki, Greece

⁸ Texas A&M Energy Institute, Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, USA

6.1 Towards a Personalised Treatment for Leukaemia: From in vivo to in vitro and in silico

Leukaemia is a severe cancer of the blood, currently affecting more than 8000 individuals in the UK on an annual basis (for more details, see Chapter 7). Traditional clinical diagnosis and further treatment focus on each patient’s clinical symptoms and signs, characteristics (e.g. sex and family history) and laboratory imaging evaluation. This process is a reactive approach to the disease, initiating after the disease symptoms appear. Moreover, in the past, drug development by pharmaceutical industries was based on empirical observations. However, ...