Divide & Conquer: Cancer Edition

continutation of the output
Output of program if the user wants 3 base cells and goes through 2 cycles each time the user presses a key and clicks [Enter]

Inspiration

As we know, cancer is one of the biggest griefs and mysteries people around the world experience. However, it is often difficult to understand why cancer happens on a cellular level. It is hard to understand how tissues are made up of cells and impacted without seeing a simulation in real time.

What it does

With our simulator we hope to show students the various rounds cells go through and how tissue is affected. The program starts with a base of cells (tissue). Then each cell passes 3 checkpoints that checks for mutations in different phases of the cell cycle. If the cell passes these checkpoints then it duplicates. Cells that have mutations do not pass the checkpoints and therefore should not duplicate, except for cancer cells. In reality, cancer cells although they have mutations, bypass the checkpoints and duplicate, generating tumors.

A normal cell is represented by brackets, the current phase it is in and the id number. For example: [G1- 789], [M - 9], [G2 - 8], [G0 - 23]

Cancer cells are represented by {}, ie. {C - 9000}

How we built it

We utilized Java classes, object, user input and enums to create our program

Challenges we ran into

We found it difficult to determine when we should update the status of a cell to be mutated, and when it should go from a regularly mutated cell to a cancer cell.

We found it hard to find statistics on how often a cell mutates. So we have estimated the likelihood our cell mutates.

It was hard to find a system that keeps track of the current cells, deleting the parent and adding cells that are exactly the same.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We feel proud of how in-depth we went with the cell phases in our program. We created procedures for each phase the cell goes into. In addition we implemented the G0 phase, which serves as a limbo point for cells that do not have enough resources for mitosis, so it doesn't replicate until it there are sufficient resources.

What we learned

We gained various skills in cooperation, and biology. We conducted research throuhghout this hackathon to be as accurate as possible with how cell division occurs.

What's next for Divide & Conquer: Cancer Edition

We will create a website and develop the front end so it is more user friendly. In the future, if we are able to get accurate data from scientists in the field, we will update the likelihood cells mutate in cell division. We see a future where our simulator can be used in life-saving cancer research.