Rate My Professor Kathleen Wilkie

Wilkie's research employs a systems biology approach to examine host systemic responses to cancer and its treatments, focusing on the immune system. Her specializations encompass computational cancer immunology, mathematical biology, mathematical oncology, mechanistic learning, quantitative systems pharmacology, scientific computing, and virtual clinical trials. She develops mathematical models and numerical simulations to predict individual patient responses, addressing why therapies succeed for some but fail for 35% of patients with cancers such as breast, prostate, or colorectal. Key contributions include models assessing chemotherapy dosing impacts on lean body mass and tumor control amid cachexia, advocating low-dose, high-frequency regimens for palliative care to improve quality of life. Another study, published in Mathematical Medicine and Biology, demonstrates that anti-inflammatory interventions during surgery can suppress pro-tumor inflammation. Select publications feature 'Approaches to Generating Virtual Patient Cohorts with Applications in Oncology' (2023), 'Practical parameter identifiability and handling of censored data with Bayesian inference in mathematical tumour models' (2024), 'Mathematical Model of Muscle Wasting in Cancer Cachexia' (2020), and 'Editorial: Advances in mathematical and computational oncology, volume III' (2023), reflecting her editorial roles. Her models facilitate virtual clinical trials and personalized therapy selection, advancing cancer treatment optimization.