SMITH

SMITH simulates intra-tumour heterogeneity using a branching process with a confinement mechanism to model spatially constrained clonal dynamics in cancer evolution.

Key Features:

• Branching process with confinement: Employs a branching process augmented by a confinement mechanism that restricts clonal growth based on individual clone size and the overall tumour population.
• Spatial constraints: Incorporates spatial constraints to reproduce clonal interactions and spatially driven selection within tumours.
• Efficiency and scalability: Scales to simulate up to 1 billion cells within minutes on a standard desktop PC, enabling high-resolution simulations of large tumour populations.
• Geometric interpretation: Provides geometric interpretations of tumour evolution to facilitate analysis of spatial and clonal dynamics.

Scientific Applications:

• Evolutionary dynamics: Studies how selection pressures and mutation rates affect cellular fitness and clonal trajectories within tumours.
• Intra-tumour heterogeneity modeling: Models spatially structured clonal heterogeneity across diverse cancer types.
• Therapeutic exploration: Enables exploration of how clonal composition and spatial constraints may influence responses to targeted therapies.

Methodology:

Combines a branching process model with a confinement mechanism that limits clonal growth by clone size and total tumour population and incorporates spatial constraints to simulate clonal dynamics and produce geometric interpretations.