Abstract: The evolution of resistance remains an elusive problem in the treatment of both
cancer and infectious disease, and represents one of the most important medical
problems of our time. While the illnesses are different on several non-trivial levels including timescale
and complexity, the underlying biological phenomenon is the same: Darwinian
evolution. To comprehensively approach these problems, I have focused my
attention on building a broad suite of investigations centered around the
causes and consequences of the evolutionary process in these contexts. I will
discuss my and my collaborator's efforts to; model the evolutionary process on
the genomic scale in both an analytic (Markov process) and stochastic
(individual based model and inference) format; to quantify in vitro competition
and interaction between cancer cell lines through an evolutionary game theoretic
lens using time-lapse microscopy and computer vision; and to understand the
evolutionary contingencies inherent in collateral sensitivity in E. coli and
ALK mutated non-small cell lung cancer.
Biography: Jacob Scott is a physician-scientist studying the evolution of cancer and
bacteria using primarily mathematical and computational methods. He enjoys
playing with his kids, doing crossword puzzles with his wife, being outdoors
and thinking about stochastic processes.