Download Please list your areas of interest/expertise

Please list your areas of interest/expertise (related to collective behavior); up
to 250 words:
-Role of cell-cell interactions and collective behavior in the tumor
microenvironment, especially in regards to interactions between tumor cells and
cells of the innate immune system.
-Collective behavior of complex systems, specifically, identifying general
properties of how emergent, global behaviors arise out of simple interactions
within groups of genes, cell, species, etc.
-Adaptive coevolutionary networks: in particular, the study of spatially extended
networks of interacting nodes (e.g., species) with both natural selection and spatial
diffusion at the individual level.
-Agent-based modeling
-Dynamical processes on networks
-Numerical algorithms for the control of complex networks
-Mathematical modeling
-Nonlinear dynamics
-Scientific computing
-Systems biology
-Synthetic biology
Please list the institution, degree and year completed for up to your two of
your most recent and highest degrees (up to 200 characters):
Carleton College, B.A. in Mathematics, 2010,
Northwestern, M.S. in Applied Mathematics (Ph.D. ongoing), 2011
Personal statement (should consist of a brief bio and include a few sentences
on current research related to collective behavior; up to 250 words; will be
published in conference roster if selected.):
I am an applied mathematician with a background in nonlinear dynamics drawn to
biology by way of studying complex systems and network theory. In my doctoral
research I have investigated how the interactions between genes in a genetic
regulatory network naturally lead to the emergence of global attracting states, like
“healthy” or “diseased”, and how these interactions can be manipulated with
therapeutics to eliminate such diseased states. This research lead me to study
similar interactions in cell-cell communication, particularly in the developing tumor
microenvironment. Here, using a simplified agent-based modeling framework to
capture interactions between a tumor and the innate immune system, I
demonstrated that even when the initial collective behavior of this system is
unpredictable, at the onset of tumorigenesis it quickly becomes determined due to
key intracellular decisions and cell-cell signaling events. Notably, I found that
immune system metrics based on these events provide insight into tumor fate long
before more standard metrics like tumor size do, illustrating how patient immune
response might be utilized to predict prognosis at early stages of tumor
development. Most recently, I expanded this approach to a general setting by
developing a new class of model, termed the “network state diffusion” model. I am
utilizing these models to study how in an interacting community of agents (bacteria,
metazoan, etc.), natural-selection on the individual level coupled with system
dynamics and spatial diffusion effectively places evolutionary pressure on both the
collective behavior and network structure of the community as a whole.
Key accomplishments related to collective behavior - from microbes to
metazoans: (e.g., publications, awards/honors, presentations, patents, or other
output applicable to your field; up to 250 words):
Key Publications:
1. Wells D, Kath W, Brockmann D. Diffusion promotes and stabilizes network
evolution, in preparation
2. Wells D, et al. Spatial and functional heterogeneity shape tumor-immune
network dynamics, in preparation
3. Wells D, Kath W, Motter A. Control of stochastic and induced switching in
biological networks, submitted
4. Wells D, Kath W. A universally applicable method to identify bifurcations in
complex multi-parameter dynamical systems, in preparation
5. Wells D, Ward M. (2010) Nephritis and the Risk of Acute Myocardial
Infarction in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus. Clinical &
Experimental Rheumatology, 28.
Key Awards:
Marine Biological Laboratory Course in Cell Physiology (2014)
Cold Spring Harbor Course in Synthetic Biology (2013)
Chicago Biomedical Consortium Scholar (2012)
National Cancer Institute Physical Sciences-Oncology Trainee (2011)
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (2011)
Northwestern University Cabell Fellowship (2010)
Carleton College Steven P. Galovich Prize (2010)
Key Talks:
Heterogeneity mediates proliferation in coupled tumor-immune networks:
-National Cancer Institute Young Investigator’s Meeting (2014)
Control of Stochastic and Induced Switching in Biological Networks:
-Network Frontiers Workshop (2013)
-National Cancer Institute Young Investigator’s Meeting (2013)
-Winter q-bio Meeting (2013)
-Purdue University: Model-Based Analysis and Control of Cellular Processes
(2010)
What is the most pressing issue or question that needs to be addressed by an
interdisciplinary audience in order to redefine the frontiers of research on the
challenges and opportunities of collective behavior, and to initiate a new
synthesis of the regulation, dynamics and evolution of collective behavior
from microbes to metazoans.(up to 250 words):
While research in collective behavior has given deep insights into how and why
many social traits exist, there has been less work in leveraging this knowledge for
technological progress. Thus, I feel that most important question in collective
behavior that could be addressed by an interdisciplinary audience is “how can we
utilize knowledge of collective behavior to optimally achieve a desired goal in
natural or engineered systems?” Said another way, “how can we implement
and/or control a desired collective behavior in a particular system?” I am
particularly interested in this question with the advent of engineered cell-based
therapies to fight diseases. In the context of such therapies, a key question is
whether engineering such systems to collectively respond to disease based upon
communication through diffusible signals will substantially increase their efficacy.
An understanding of how to implement and control collective behaviors in
systems has clear applications to other fields outside of medicine as well: from
robotics, in the design of self-assembling robots, to social networks, by identifying
the key members of a community to influence the behavior of the entire group. I
feel that this question in particular requires a strongly interdisciplinary audience to
be able to identify the unifying, foundational characteristics of collective behavior
as well as to determine what the key features of a successful, broadly applicable
approach for implementing/controlling these characteristics will be.