Introducing MoLab Pakistan
The Country's First Dedicated Mathematical Oncology Initiative
Cancer is increasingly understood as a complex, dynamic, and evolving system. Mathematical models provide a powerful framework for studying tumor growth, treatment response, and disease progression, complementing experimental and clinical research with quantitative insight. While mathematical oncology has grown rapidly in many parts of the world, this interdisciplinary field remains largely unexplored in Pakistan.
We are delighted to introduce the MathOnco Community to MoLab Pakistan (Mathematical Oncology Lab Pakistan), a newly established initiative based at Fatima Jinnah Medical University in Lahore, Pakistan. Our goal is to cultivate a collaborative environment where mathematics, oncology, computational science, and medicine converge to address cancer-related challenges relevant to our region while contributing to the broader international mathematical oncology community.
How MoLab Pakistan Came to Exist
The idea behind MoLab Pakistan is rooted in a personal journey that began long before medical school.
I have always been deeply interested in mathematics, computer science, and physics. Fortunately, despite the demanding nature of medical training, those interests never faded. Instead, they gradually evolved into a desire to understand how quantitative sciences could be applied to some of medicine's most challenging problems.
During my third year of medical school in 2024, reading Azra Raza's book, The First Cell, sparked a profound interest in oncology and led me to explore how cancer could be studied not only through biology and clinical practice, but also through mathematical and computational frameworks.
In 2025, I attended the Consortium of Universities for Global Health Conference in Atlanta during my second visit to the United States. I also completed a clinical observership in General, Robotic, and Bariatric Surgery in Texas under the mentorship of Dr. Oviedo. During these experiences, I had the opportunity to meet researchers and clinicians whose encouragement reinforced my interest in interdisciplinary approaches to healthcare and research.
I spent much of 2025 exploring mathematical oncology, reading the literature, and discovering the global MathOnco Community. Seeing the remarkable work being conducted around the world inspired a simple but important question: Why not build something similar in Pakistan?
That question ultimately became the foundation of MoLab Pakistan.
Why MoLab Pakistan?
Pakistan faces a growing cancer burden alongside increasing opportunities to leverage computational methods in healthcare. However, quantitative modeling and mathematical oncology remain largely underrepresented within local research and medical education. MoLab Pakistan was established to help bridge this gap by fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between mathematicians, clinicians, computational scientists, engineers, biologists, and medical researchers. Our long-term vision is to develop locally relevant mathematical models, promote quantitative thinking in oncology, and encourage collaborative research that integrates biological understanding with mathematical and computational approaches.
We hope to contribute to the development of a research ecosystem where computational and mathematical methods become an integral part of cancer research and, eventually, clinical decision-making.
Our Research Interests
Our work is centered around several interconnected areas of mathematical oncology, including:
- Tumor growth modeling using mathematical growth laws such as exponential, logistic, and Gompertz models.
- Computational oncology and predictive modeling for understanding tumor dynamics and therapeutic response.
- Mathematical biology and systems-based approaches to cancer progression.
- Digital tools and simulation environments that make mathematical oncology accessible to students, researchers, and clinicians.
- Development of population-relevant predictive models that incorporate local clinical and demographic data as these resources become available.
Although our initiative is in its early stages, we hope to progressively expand into more sophisticated modeling approaches, interdisciplinary collaborations, and clinically informed computational research.
Building Capacity Through Education
An important component of our mission is education.
Alongside research activities, we are developing the Virtual Mathematical Oncology Lab (vMoLab), an interactive platform that allows users to explore classical tumor growth models through real-time simulations. The platform enables students and researchers to adjust model parameters and visualize how mathematical assumptions influence predicted tumor behavior.
We also aim to organize workshops, educational initiatives, and interdisciplinary discussions that introduce quantitative oncology concepts to students, clinicians, and early-career researchers throughout Pakistan. By lowering barriers to entry, we hope to encourage more individuals from diverse backgrounds to engage with mathematical oncology.
Looking Ahead
Scientific progress depends upon collaboration. We are excited to join the MathOnco Community and look forward to learning from established groups worldwide while contributing perspectives from an emerging mathematical oncology ecosystem.
We welcome opportunities for collaboration in mathematical modeling, computational oncology, education, and interdisciplinary research. Whether your interests lie in theoretical modeling, experimental validation, clinical translation, or education, we would be delighted to connect.
We believe that expanding mathematical oncology into new regions will strengthen the global community and ultimately contribute to more predictive, personalized, and data-driven cancer research.
About the Author
Seemab Mehmood is the Founder of MoLab Pakistan and a final-year medical student at Fatima Jinnah Medical University, Lahore. Her interests include mathematical oncology, computational medicine, digital health, and global health. Through MoLab Pakistan, she aims to establish interdisciplinary collaborations that advance quantitative approaches to cancer research while building educational and research capacity in Pakistan.
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