Alex Brummer

Assistant Professor

Education 

B.Sc. Physics, B.Sc. Mathematics, Oregon State University, 2010

M.Sc. Physics (2013), Ph.D. Physics (2017), University of Arizona

Research Interests 

My research focuses on building and testing physical and mathematical models of vascular and cancer biology that connect form and function. This spans how blood vessel branching influences tumor function and predicts growth, to ecologically inspired models of cancer therapeutics. This work involves a combination of pencil-paper theory and computational modeling to analyze data from experimental and clinical collaborators and online data repositories.  Undergraduate students are regularly involved and supported in this work.

Affiliations

College of Charleston

Assistant Professor 2022 – present 

City of Hope National Medical Center/Beckman Research Institute

Postdoctoral Fellow 2021 – 2022

Consultant 2020 – 2021

University of California Los Angeles

Postdoctoral Fellow 2017 – 2021

Courses Taught

PHYS 101 – Introductory Physics I

PHYS 101L – Introductory Physics Laboratory I

PHYS 112 – General Physics II

PHYS 203 – Physics and Medicine

PHYS 403 – Introductory Quantum Mechanics

Selected Publications

Woodall, R. T., Esparza, C. C., Gutova, M., Wang, M., Cunningham-Reynolds, J., Brummer, B., Stine, C., Brown, C., Munson, J. M. & Rockne, R. C. Model discovery approach enables non-invasive measurement of intra-tumoral fluid transport in dynamic MRI. APL Bioengineering. 8, 026106 (2024). Doi: 10.1063/5.0190561.

Brummer, A. B., Xella, A., Woodall, R., Adhikarla, V., Cho, H., Gutova, M., Brown, C. E. & Rockne, R. C. Data driven model discovery and interpretation for CAR T-cell killing using sparse identification and latent variables. Frontiers in Immunology: Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy. 14, 1115536 (2023). Doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1115536.

Desai-Chowdhry, P., Brummer, A. B. & Savage, V. M. How axon and dendrite branching areguided by time, energy, and spatial constraints. Scientific Reports. 12, 20810 (2022). Doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-24813-2.

Kim, Y.-W., Zara, G., Kang, H.J., Branciamore, S., O’Malley, D., Feng, Y., Kuan, C.-Y., Luo, Y., Nelson, M., Brummer, A. B., Rockne, R., Chen, Z. B., Zheng, Y., Cardoso, A. A. & Carlesso, N. Integration of single-cell transcriptomes and biological function reveals distinct behavioral patterns in bone marrow endothelium. Nature Communications. 13, 72335 (2022). Doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34425-z.

Brummer, A. B., Yang X., Ma E., Gutova M., Brown C. E., & Rockne R. C. Dose-dependent thresholds of dexamethasone destabilize CAR T-cell treatment efficacy. PLoS Computational Biology. 18, 1 (2022). Doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009504.

Brummer, A. B. & Savage, V. M. Cancer as a model system for testing metabolic scaling theory. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 9, 691830 (2021). Doi: 10.3389/fevo.2021.691830.

Brummer, A. B., & Newman, E. Derivations of the Core Functions of the Maximum Entropy Theory of Ecology. Entropy. 21, 7 (2019). Doi: 10.3390/e21070712.

Brummer, A. B., Savage, V. M. & Enquist, B. J. A general model for metabolic scaling in self-similar asymmetric networks. PLoS Computational Biology. 13, 3 (2017). Doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005394

Honors & Awards

2023 Faculty Research and Development Grant. “Data-driven discovery of governing equations of chemical reactions”.

2023 Landahl Travel Award, Society for Mathematical Biology – Annual Meeting, Columbus, OH.

2023 USNCCM Travel Grant, US National Conference on Computational Mechanics – Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM.

2019 Collaboratory Fellowship, Institute for Quantitative and Computational Biosciences, University of California, Los Angeles.

Press & Media

Work discussed in “The College Today”. (Summer Research Grants Keep Learning Cool, Editorial Team, 2023)

Links