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Challenges and lessons learned in developing agent-based models applied to vocal fold injury and repair

Nicole Li-Jensen

School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, McGill

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Our research program targets to advance personalized medicine in voice care with an emphasis on the use of computational technologies. Voice disorders are the most common communication disorder across the lifespan, affecting almost one-third of the general population in North America. Afflicted individuals may suffer from a loss of voice or hoarseness to meet their communication needs. Voice disorders create a major occupational hazard in many workers such as salespeople, teachers, performing artists, attorneys and sport coaches owing to high vocal demands of their jobs. The estimated lifetime prevalence of voice disorders is as high as 80% in occupational voice users. In Canada the direct health cost of voice disorders is nearly $1.75 billion annually.
At present, the biological mechanism underlying the formation of vocal lesions remains to be elucidated. Tissue injury and repair is a complex process that involves multiple cells types and molecular signals. Our group has developed a 3D agent-based models (ABM) at physiological scale to numerically simulate the cellular and molecular response to vocal injury. Significant progress has made to improve the model鈥檚 computational speed and visualization feature using our hybrid CPU-GPU computing platform. Gaps however still exist between the model and the reality. In this talk, I will present what challenges we are facing and what lessons we have learnt in biological computing.