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Dr. Andreas Groh

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Tel. [49] (0)681/302-3218

Room 4.09 (Building E1 1)

Research Interests

  • Mathematical modelling in (systems) biology and medicine
  • Especially: biased and random cell migration

Cell migration is a frequently observable ability of eukaryotic cells and it is essential for many physiological and pathological processes like immune response, wound healing, embryonic development and tumour pathogenesis. Migrating fibroblasts synthesise collagen which characterises the structural framework of the extracellular matrix (ECM). These cells play a crucial role in wound healing as well as in the desmoplastic stromal reaction (DSR). Essentially, this process is an abnormal increase of collagen as response to tumour invasion and it is, to a certain extent, comparable with dermal wound healing. Thereby, the migratory behaviour of the fibre producing fibroblasts governs the progression of the DSR. The cells are predominantly influenced by natural friction in their surrounding, random fluctuations and by the directional biases chemotaxis and contact guidance. The mathematical modelling of the DSR, i.e. essentially the cell migration and the corresponding temporal evolution of the fibrous material was one aim of my PHD thesis.

This video shows some aspects of the work. The following steps are depicted:

  • Digital image of a real histological slice.
  • Manual Segmentation and classification of the cellular structures: dark grey represents chemoattractant producing tumour whilst light grey stands for healthy or necrotic tissue. The area of the ineluctable artefacts are also taken into account and they are filled with red.
  • The polygonal boundaries of the segmented structures define the ECM-area and serve as input for the numerical simulations. Initially, some fibroblasts are randomly inserted into the ECM (white area) before the actual simulation starts. The black lines illustrate the smoothed cell trajectories.
  • Post processing: based on the cell trajectories and collagen density distribution further information concerning fibre architecture are gained.

 

Curriculum Vitae

20th Aug. 1977 Birth
June 1996 Graduated from Helmholtz-Gymnasium, Zweibrücken
1996/97 Civilean Service
Okt. 1997 Begin of Studies to become a teacher in mathematics and biologie at the Saarland Univeristy. Title of the final paper: "Algorithmenentwicklung in der Tomosynthese: Ein spezielles Tomographieverfahren", supervised by Prof. Dr. A.K. Louis
Sept. 2003 First State Examination
Okt. 2003 Begin doctoral studies in applied mathematics at the chair of Prof. Dr. A.K. Louis
since Jan. 2004 Scientific assistant at the chair of Prof. Dr. A.K. Louis
Feb. 2009 Doctorate degree (rer. nat.), Title of the thesis: Stochastische Modellierung der durch Taxien beeinflussten Zellmigration und Simulation der extrazellulären Matrix


Lectures

   

Publications