Research

One of the most successful programmes developed in the first three years of 3ME is the Researcher in Residence. This programme embeds our younger academic staff on sabbatical to focus on multidisciplinary research in a different department for a period of 3-6 months. The aim is to buy out teaching commitments and to allow the academic to remain within the new department to develop new projects and ideas. This will provide our multidisciplinary champions of the future at Keele and hopefully beyond in the wider community at large. During the 3ME initiative, we established 4 Researchers in Residence and our aim is to continue this programme through the follow-on year 2011-12.

This activity commenced with the appointment of a lecturer in the Computer department , Dr Theocharis Kyriacou to transfer into the School of Medicine for a period of 5 months from September 5th, 2011 to January 31st, 2012. Dr Kyriacou’s research activities are in analytical and cognitive robotics and he is bringing expertise in the area of Mathematical Modelling techniques. Dr Kyriacou has recently been doing research in the area of biologically inspired navigation in robotics. His initial work in this area is in the computational modelling of the function of Head Direction (HD) cells that are thought to play a pivotal role in the navigation system of humans and animals.

Dr Kyriacou has begun to establish cross disciplinary programmes. He is currently applying the NARMAX (Non-linear Auto Regressive Moving Average with eXogenous inputs) system identification methodology ([Leontaritis and Billings 1985, Chen and Billings 1989]) to the following domains in association with several clinical and lab-based members of the Medical School. A few specific examples of his activity are:

Quantitative models of human platelet Ca2+ signalling (in association with Dr Alan Harper)

The aim is to investigate the feasibility of developing a transparent mathematical model of platelet cytosolic calcium signals. Data has been collected from two different donors (type II diabetic and healthy volunteer) and initial application of the modelling approach has successfully produced models that can estimate the changes in the calcium concentration caused by platelet activation with thrombin in terms of the component fluxes of calcium ions from the extracellular space, pericellular region and intracellular stores. More importantly, a comparison of the model produced from data obtained from a type II diabetic against that obtained from a healthy volunteer shows structural differences in the mathematical model that can be used to qualitatively and quantitatively describe the differences in their platelet Ca2+ signalling . Further experiments are planned to investigate the reproducibility of these findings. It is envisaged that external funding will be sought in the near-future to help progress this work.

Novel mathematical models for improved dermal and transdermal drug delivery (in association with Dr Gary Patrick Moss)

The aim is to model the human skin permeability to various drugs using NARMAX. While recent non-linear models, such as those based on Gaussian Processes, have provided fairly accurate models for skin permeability they are limited in their application due to their complex nature and lack of a transparent representation of their models. So far, existing findings using previously processed data have been reproduced very quickly and easily using the NARMAX methodology but with the added advantage that the results are more transparent and thus more amenable to mathematical scrutiny.

As a result, a grant proposal has been submitted to the British Skin Foundation that will address the limitations of existing modelling techniques in this field by employing the NARMAX methodology. The proposed research is both novel and highly significant, as it will allow for the first time the modelling of different processes, including dermal deposition and those based on clinical endpoints, thereby improving the accuracy, efficiency and understanding of dermal therapies, including eczema and psoriasis, in particular.

Mathematical Modelling in Stem Cell Engineering (in association with Dr Oksana Kehoe, Prof James Richardson, Prof Alicia El Haj)

As part of a grant proposal funded by the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine, mathematical modelling will be used in order to compare the quality parameters and indicators of a particular type of stem cell (Mesenchymal stem cells - MSCs) in mice and humans.

Predicting life expectancy following cancer metastasis (in association with Dr Jan Herman Kuiper)

The NARMAX modelling methodology is used in order to find models that can estimate the life expectancy of cancer patients following cancer metastasis as a function of measured parameters.