Cancer, immune system and therapies: insights from mathematical modeling

Different mathematical models of multicellular systems are developed from an evolutionary viewpoint. The applications are related to cancer-immune cells dynamics and therapies. The mathematical formalism covers a variety of tools according to the biological question addressed. The thesis underlines the importance of the tumor clone composition in the identification of the more effective treatments and to avoid tumor drug resistance. Tumor mutations are used to explain some disease characteristics and controversial data on the effectiveness of the treatments. Mathematically, the differences between models and scales have been displayed and studied, pointing out their value in relation to the biological problems.