Matt Fivash is with Data Management Services (DMS), a contractor with the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He is a statistician in the Statistical Services department at the Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center (FCRDC), located at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland.
"Statistical Services has the primary mission to help both basic and applied research in biology and medicine at NCI," he explains. "Currently, I am working with the Protein Chemistry Lab and the Biomedical Supercomputer Center to develop models of interactions between macromolecules. In addition, I assist other researchers here at FCRDC when questions arise. This work is essentially basic research."
"The molecules our lab works with change as time passes. Currently, we're working with some HIV proteins (NC p7, HIV protease, and some others), and some cancer systems (including the TIMP system which helps metastasis). We hope to determine how these systems work, and dream that this understanding will lead to less sickness."
"Basically, my job is to build mathematical models of biological systems. I'm primarily using ODEs to model macromolecular reactions. The systems are non-linear, and stiff (a system is modeled as a vector of ODEs, which have quite different time constants). We use MATLAB to numerically integrate these systems, and then update the parameters using squared sums (regression) to determine the best estimate of the values for the parameters. Here, both the ODEs and the regression are non-linear. This is the core of the model...there are other equations that I use to complete a model, a few describing functions, some distributions, and a little combinatorial work, etc., as needed."
Matt has a BS in mathematics from the University of Maryland and an MA in mathematics from American University. He worked several places, including Honeywell, Harmon Ind. and HeathKit, Inc. However, in 1990 a friend suggested he look into an opening at DMS and he liked what he saw. He likes the opportunity to collaborate and publish with the other scientists at the NCI. He adds that "I've tried the commercial, industrial, government, and research...I think I like research!!"
He sees differences between what he is doing now and the time he spent in industry. "In some ways," he recalls "industry is hard; not only do you need to do the science, you need to understand how and when a product is sold, and how to build it profitably."
He finds his mathematics background good preparation for his work at NCI. "The more mathematics the better; sooner or later everything seems to apply. A friend and researcher told me that 'the best biologists started as mathematicians.' "
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