We study a multi-type branching process model associated with a transitional network between types. In particular, we are interested in determining the waiting time to each type in the network, employing an approximation of the process by its large time limit. We first present a literature review of results on large time limits and classify the dynamics of branching processes by their mean value matrices. For the special case when the transitional network is a single pathway, we present two approaches regarding approximating the waiting time for each type. To apply our theory to a real world problem, we use a multi-type branching process to model the development of colorectal cancer from initially healthy tissue. The model incorporates a complex sequence of driver gene alterations, some of which result in immediate growth advantage, while others have initially neutral effects. We derive analytic estimates for the sizes of premalignant subpopulations, and use these results to compute the waiting time distributions of novel driver mutations.

This volume develops results on continuous time branching processes and applies them to study rate of tumor growth, extending classic work on the Luria-Delbruck distribution. As a consequence, the author calculate the probability that mutations that confer resistance to treatment are present at detection and quantify the extent of tumor heterogeneity. As applications, the author evaluate ovarian cancer screening strategies and give rigorous proofs for results of Heano and Michor concerning tumor metastasis. These notes should be accessible to students who are familiar with Poisson processes and continuous time Markov chains. Richard Durrett is a mathematics professor at Duke University, USA. He is the author of 8 books, over 200 journal articles, and has supervised more than 40 Ph.D students. Most of his current research concerns the applications of probability to biology: ecology, genetics and most recently cancer.

Tumor progression is driven by mutations that confer growth advantages to different subpopulations of cancer cells. As a tumor grows, these subpopulations expand, accumulate new mutations, and are subjected to selective pressures from the environment, including anticancer interventions. This process, termed clonal evolution, can lead to the emergence of therapy-resistant tumors and poses a major challenge for cancer eradication efforts. Written and edited by experts in the field, this collection from Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Medicine examines cancer progression as an evolutionary process and explores how this way of looking at cancer may lead to more effective strategies for managing and treating it. The contributors review efforts to characterize the subclonal architecture and dynamics of tumors, understand the roles of chromosomal instability, driver mutations, and mutation order, and determine how cancer cells respond to selective pressures imposed by anticancer agents, immune cells, and other components of the tumor microenvironment. They compare cancer evolution to organismal evolution and describe how ecological theories and mathematical models are being used to understand the complex dynamics between a tumor and its microenvironment during cancer progression. The authors also discuss improved methods to monitor tumor evolution (e.g., liquid biopsies) and the development of more effective strategies for managing and treating cancers (e.g., immunotherapies). This volume will therefore serve as a vital reference for all cancer biologists as well as anyone seeking to improve clinical outcomes for patients with cancer.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Bioinformatics Research and Applications, ISBRA 2023, held in Wrocław, Poland, during October 9–12, 2023. The 28 full papers and 16 short papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 89 submissions. They were organized in topical sections as follows: reconciling inconsistent molecular structures from biochemical databases; radiology report generation via visual recalibration and context gating-aware; sequence-based nanobody-antigen binding prediction; and hist2Vec: kernel-based embeddings for biological sequence classification.

This book covers the mathematical idea of branching processes, and tailors it for a biological audience.

This book provides a theoretical background of branching processes and discusses their biological applications. Branching processes are a well-developed and powerful set of tools in the field of applied probability. The range of applications considered includes molecular biology, cellular biology, human evolution and medicine. The branching processes discussed include Galton-Watson, Markov, Bellman-Harris, Multitype, and General Processes. As an aid to understanding specific examples, two introductory chapters, and two glossaries are included that provide background material in mathematics and in biology. The book will be of interest to scientists who work in quantitative modeling of biological systems, particularly probabilists, mathematical biologists, biostatisticians, cell biologists, molecular biologists, and bioinformaticians. The authors are a mathematician and cell biologist who have collaborated for more than a decade in the field of branching processes in biology for this new edition. This second expanded edition adds new material published during the last decade, with nearly 200 new references. More material has been added on infinitely-dimensional multitype processes, including the infinitely-dimensional linear-fractional case. Hypergeometric function treatment of the special case of the Griffiths-Pakes infinite allele branching process has also been added. There are additional applications of recent molecular processes and connections with systems biology are explored, and a new chapter on genealogies of branching processes and their applications. Reviews of First Edition: "This is a significant book on applications of branching processes in biology, and it is highly recommended for those readers who are interested in the application and development of stochastic models, particularly those with interests in cellular and molecular biology." (Siam Review, Vol. 45 (2), 2003) “This book will be very interesting and useful for mathematicians, statisticians and biologists as well, and especially for researchers developing mathematical methods in biology, medicine and other natural sciences.” (Short Book Reviews of the ISI, Vol. 23 (2), 2003)