This new joint appointment between the Ludwig Oxford Branch and the University of Oxford’s Mathematical Institute will strengthen the mathematical and computational modeling capabilities at Ludwig Oxford
May 26, 2022—Ludwig Cancer Research welcomes Helen Byrne, Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Oxford, to the Ludwig Oxford Branch. Byrne joins the Branch as a senior group leader while retaining her position at the Mathematical Institute in Oxford. This joint appointment will catalyze new multidisciplinary partnerships between the Mathematical Institute and Medical Sciences and support the Branch’s vision of improving the understanding of the molecular basis of cancer and its heterogeneous responses to therapy.
Byrne’s research program operates at the interface of mathematical modeling and cancer biology. She has been a leading figure in establishing productive collaborations between these fields in Oxford, including projects on tumor growth, interactions with the microenvironment and the immune system, vascular networks and responses to therapy.
To learn more about cancer initiation and progression, Byrne’s group will extend its mechanistic models and advanced data analysis methods and develop innovative ways to combine these with complex, multiscale biomedical datasets. It is hoped that this approach will eventually establish a rational and objective basis to support clinical decision-making, particularly for personalised cancer medicine.
In recognition of her outstanding scientific achievements and record of active leadership in mentoring scientific careers, Byrne was awarded the 2019 Leah Edelstein-Keshet Prize from the Society for Mathematical Biology, of which she became a Fellow in 2020.
The Ludwig Cancer Research community looks forward to the exciting new avenues of research that Byrne’s joint appointment will open at the Branch and beyond.