Complexity and mathematical tools toward the modelling of multicellular growing systems

This paper deals with a multiscale modelling approach to complex biological systems constituted by several interacting entities. The methodology is based on mathematical kinetic theory for active particles and is focused on the modelling of complex multicellular systems under therapeutic actions at the cellular level and mutations with onset of new populations. Asymptotic hyperbolic methods are developed to derive models at the macroscopic scale of tissues from the underlying description at the level of cells for a open system with variable number of populations. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.