Geneva Birtles
Spatial Modelling of Lesion Development Informed by Multiple Sclerosis Patient MRIs
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a life-long disease arising from the immune system mistakenly attacking the myelin, protective insulation of nerve cells in the brain, causing irreversible damage. Unfortunately, this disease has no cure, and while considerable therapeutic advances against this disease have been achieved, MS will still progress within a patient. Fortunately though, from the years of development of mathematical models of immunology mathematics is well placed to add insight into patient prognosis and treatment. This project will focus on developed a mathematical model of immune cell activity in MS using partial differential equations. The model parameters will then be calibrated using MRI data from human patients, and then used to predict the evolution of a patient’s disease throughout their lifetime. From this, we hope to predict potential intervention points for treatment.
Geneva Birtles
Queensland University of Technology
Geneva is a final-year undergraduate student at the Queensland University of Technology, studying a double degree in mathematics and business. Her majors are applied and computational mathematics, and finance; while passionate about both she aspires to continue her studies in mathematics and one day go into research. Alongside her studies, Geneva also tutors first-year computational mathematics at QUT. Her primary research interest is computational modelling and how this can be applied to biology and various other fields.
