ProfessorPeter Kim

Project Opportunities

Title: Evolution of human post-menopausal longevity: Grandmother Hypothesis

Summary of opportunity:

An outstanding question in human evolution is why humans developed such long lifespans, greatly exceeding the end of female fertility.  As far as we know, only pilot whales and killer whales share this trait.  The Grandmother Hypothesis proposes that humans developed increased longetivity as ancestral grandmothers began to help care for their daughters' children, allowing their daughters to move on to the next child sooner.  As part of an exciting collaboration with a leading anthropologist at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA, we develop models of primate populations to determine under what conditions grandmother help could drive increased longetivity without increased reproduction.  We also consider alternative hypotheses, including the Hunting Hypothesis that male hunting in groups and long-term pair bonding with females pushed human longevity.

Opportunity synopsis:

We formulate novel mathematical models to quantify and simulate many ideas presented as verbal hypotheses of how humans and other primates evolved.

----------Current Research Projects----------

If you are interested in pursuing a PhD, masters, honours, independent undergraduate project, or collaboration along the lines of one of these topics or a related area, please feel free to contact me at (peter.kim@sydney.edu.au).

Targeted radionuclide therapy

Targeted radionuclide therapy (TRT) is a cutting-edge approach in nuclear medicine. In TRT, pharmaceuticals deliver radioactive particles (radionuclides) straight to a tumour. There, radionuclides emit lethal radiation, killing cancer cells. Unfortunately, the radio-pharmaceutical is sometimes taken up by healthy cells, and radiation could damage healthy cells beyond the tumour.

We seek to model the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of TRT to better predict therapy outcome and optimise therapy. Specific questions are to determine the optimal amount of radiopharmaceutical that needs to be administered and to compare effect of different radionuclides.

The project will be co-supervised by Mark Nelson (University of Wollongong) and Alessandra Malaroda (St Vincent's Public Hospital).

Evolution of human post-menopausal longevity: Grandmother Hypothesis

A big question in human evolution is why humans developed such long lifespans, greatly exceeding the end of female fertility. As far as we know, only pilot whales and killer whales share this trait. The Grandmother Hypothesis proposes that humans developed increased longevity as ancestral grandmothers began to help care for their daughters' children, allowing their daughters to move on to the next child sooner. As part of an exciting collaboration with Kristen Hawkes, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA, we develop models of primate populations to determine under what conditions grandmother help could drive increased longevity without increased reproduction. We also consider alternative hypotheses, including the Hunting Hypothesis that male hunting in groups and long-term pair bonding with females pushed human longevity.

The podcast of a Public Lecture by Prof. Kristen Hawkes on "Grandmothers and Human Evolution" on 15 Aug 2015 as part of the Sydney Science Festival is available here.

Evolution of mating strategies among humans and primates

Human life history is puzzling. Despite having highly dependent newborns that grow expensive tissues (e.g. our brains), we reproduce faster than our closest primate relatives, which is possible because mothers receive a considerable amount of help caring for their young. How did this help evolve?

In particular, mothers can receive caring help from their mothers (grandmothering), other females, and pair-bonded males. In fact, pair bonding and biparental care is strikingly common among humans, but rare among other primates, (although some nonhuman pair-bonding primates exist). Also, in collaboration with Kristen Hawkes at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA, we will tackle questions about mating strategies and what conditions allow certain strategies to evolve and remain.

Mathematically modelling immune dynamics and regulation

When a pathogen induces inflammation, dendritic cells migrate to lymph nodes, where they interact with T cells. In minutes, numerous T cells form bonds with each dendritic cell. Like social organisms, immune cells form associations that give rise to emergent group dynamics that outlast the lifespans of the interactions and even the cells involved. We seek to investigate the importance of cell organization, interaction rates, and aggregation to build a theory of the emergent dynamics of immune responses.

Cancer vaccines and immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a promising approach to cancer treatment. It involves helping the body's immune defences defeat tumours. Several methods involve T cell vaccination, dendritic cell vaccination, and cytokine therapy. In collaboration with a cancer immunologist at the City of Hope and Beckman Research Institute, Los Angeles, USA, we develop mathematical models to describe interactions between immune cells and tumour cells with and without treatment to help understand data and propose new strategies for investigation.

Cancer virotherapy

Cancer virotherapy involves infecting patients with genetically-engineered viruses to attack tumours. It is closely related to cancer immunotherapy, because viruses can often be engineered to induce a concurrent anti-tumour immune response or combined with other immunotherapies. In collaboration with a genetic engineering laboratory at Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, we develop models of viral infection of tumour masses and the possible recruitment of a simultaneous immune response.