This seminar is for the Chancellors Faculty Excellence Program: Quantitative and Computational Developmental Biology Cluster Hire.
Many applications in the life sciences involve unknown system parameters that must be estimated using little to no prior information. In addition, these parameters may be time-varying and possibly subject to structural characteristics such as periodicity. We show how nonlinear Bayesian filtering techniques can be employed in this setting to estimate unknown, time-varying parameters, while…
Dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area play a key role in signalling motivational information. Modulation of this signalling by drugs is also key to the development of addiction. These neurons have several firing modes ranging from periodic low frequency activity to higher frequency bursts. In vitro, intrinsically generated bursts are seen, while in vivo…
Part 1: A theoretical approachChaotic dynamics have been directly detected in ocean dwelling species, and asymmetrical advective dispersal is the dominant dispersal mechanism in the ocean. Therefore, we must better our understanding of chaotic population dynamics under the influence of a unidirectional current. Here, we examine a spatially explicit, density-dependent population in a unidirectional current,…
Aspects of the cardiovascular system:(i) coupling between the left ventricle and systemic arteries, and (ii) arterial dissection. Two topics in mathematical and computational modelling of the systemic arterial circulation will be discussed. First, an immersed boundary model of the left ventricle (LV) is coupled to a structured tree model of the systemic arteries. There is…
New infectious disease outbreaks have great impact on communities over the world, as recently manifested by the Ebola outbreak. An important statistical task is then to predict the future scenario with and with out preventive measures. In the current talk we will investigate such analyses and see how it can be improved. The main catch…
Noise can play a critical role in a wide array of physical and biological dynamical systems. The noise may be internal or external to the system. Internal noise is intrinsic to the system itself, and in stochastic population models, arises due to the random interactions of discrete agents in the system. On the other hand,…
Why do atherosclerotic plaques only occur at specific sites in the arteries? Does the surface geometry of the brain affect the way waves move through the cortex? These questions and many others in the physiological sphere contain implicitly a real difficulty for modellers. How do we contend with the multiple scale lengths. Plaques are quite large compared to cells making…
Circadian (~24-hour) rhythms offer one of the clearest examples of the interplay between different levels of nervous system organization, with dynamic changes in gene expression leading to daily rhythms in neural activity, physiology, and behavior. The main output signal of the master circadian clock in mammals has long been believed to be a simple day/night…
The pharmaceutical industry has increasingly embraced mathematical modeling as a method to predict drug-body interactions. In particular, issues of drug toxicity and drug-drug interactions impact the drug development and approval process. Initially begun as a private-public partnership, DILIsym Services is the leading software platform to help inform issues relating to drug-induced liver injury (DILI) by…
As the world’s rapidly growing population is driving ever increasing demand for food, feed and fuel, we are faced with the challenge to grow higher-yielding crops with less water and fewer inputs. Agriculture companies are focused on meeting these needs by delivering innovative products and technologies into the marketplace that improve crop performance. This requires…
In fibroblasts responding to gradients of platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), an important chemoattractant in development and wound healing, signaling through the phospholipase C (PLC)/protein kinase C (PKC) pathway proved necessary for chemotaxis, whereas pathways that collaborate to activate the Arp2/3 complex were found to be dispensable. PKC is activated through its binding to the lipid…
Anticipating abrupt changes in ecosystem state is key for ecosystem management and preservation. Detailed knowledge of ecological mechanisms behind a critical transition is often difficult to attain, and the theory of resilience - assessment of the ability of a system to withstand disturbances - provides a pathway to circumvent this problem. Loss of system resilience…
Gene expression is a biochemical process driven by the chance collisions of molecules, which can result in strong stochastic signatures and cell-to-cell variability in gene network dynamics (e.g. oscillation). Biological oscillators co-exist in the same cell and can interact directly or indirectly through shared resources. Our lab uses modeling and experiments to understand how these…
The Valsalva maneuver (VM) is a quick, noninvasive, clinical procedure with a variety of uses. In particular, the VM can aid in the diagnosis of autonomic nervous system dysfunction. The VM induces changes in blood pressure, which reflexively induces a neural signaling cascade to adjust heart rate, heart contractility, peripheral vascular resistance, and venous compliance.…
This semester the Biomathematics GSA will be hosting student led tutorials on a variety of topics. The goal of these tutorials is to help graduate students develop computational tools. This week will cover data manipulation using R Studio. If you are interested in participating please bring a laptop with the necessary software (R and R…