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Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar (past)

Fri, 10/05
14:00 		Dr Rachele Allena (ENSAM) Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar Add to calendar L1
Mechanical models to explore biological phenomena
Mechanics plays an important role during several biological phenomena such as morphogenesis, wound healing, bone remodeling and tumorogenesis. Each one of these events is triggered by specific elementary cell deformations or movements that may involve single cells or populations of cells. In order to better understand how cell behave and interact, especially during degenerative processes (i.e. tumorogenesis and metastasis), it has become necessary to combine both numerical and experimental approaches. Particularly, numerical models allow determining those parameters that are still very difficult to experimentally measure such as strains and stresses. During the last few years, I have developed new finite element models to simulate morphogenetic movements in Drosophila embryo, limb morphogenesis, bone remodeling as well as single and collective cell migration. The common feature of these models is the multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient which has been used to take into account both the active and the passive deformations undergone by the cells. I will show how this mechanical approach, firstly used in the seventies by Lee and Mandel to describe large viscoelastic deformations, can actually be very powerful in modeling the biological phenomena mentioned above.
Fri, 26/04
14:00 		Dr Hugo van den Berg (University of Warwick) Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar Add to calendar L1
Control of uterine excitability
Fri, 15/02
14:00 		Prof Michael Stumpf (London) Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar Add to calendar L1
Molecular information processing and cell fate decisions
In this talk I will discuss recent developments in information theoretical approaches to fundamental molecular processes that affect the cellular decision making processes. One of the challenges of applying concepts from information theory to biological systems is that information is considered independently from meaning. This means that a noisy signal carries quantifiably more information than a unperturbed signal. This has, however, led us to consider and develop new approaches that allow us to quantify the level of noise contributed by any molecular reactions in a reaction network. Surprisingly this analysis reveals an important and hitherto often overlooked role of degradation reactions on the noisiness of biological systems. Following on from this I will outline how such ideas can be used in order to understand some aspects of cell-fate decision making, which I will discuss with reference to the haematopoietic system in health and disease.
Fri, 01/02
14:00 		Professor Sandip Ghosal (Northwestern University) Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar Add to calendar L1
Polymer translocation across membranes’
The operation of sub-cellular processes in living organisms often require the transfer of biopolymers across impermeable lipid membranes. The emergence of new experimental techniques for manipulation of single molecules at nanometer scales have made possible in vitro experiments that can directly probe such translocation processes in cells as well as in synthetic systems. Some of these ideas have spawned novel bio-technologies with many more likely to emerge in the near future. In this talk I would review some of these experiments and attempt to provide a quantitative understanding of the data in terms of physical laws, primarily mechanics and electrostatics.
Fri, 23/11/2012
14:00 		Dr Eric Keaveny (Imperial College London) Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar Add to calendar L1
Shaping swimmers and their environments for better locomotion
Fri, 09/11/2012
14:00 		Professor Anton van der Mewe (Sir William Dunn School of Pathology) Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar Add to calendar L1
The importance of size in immune cell recognition
Fri, 26/10/2012
14:00 		Dr Paul Bates (Head of Biomolecular Modelling Laboratory Cancer Research UK London Research Institute) Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar Add to calendar L1
Multiscale modelling of cancer cell motility
Fri, 12/10/2012
14:00 		Dr Grant Lythe (University of Leeds) Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar Add to calendar L1
Stochastic dynamics and the adaptive immune system

For any corrections/updates to these listings, please contact seminars [-at-] maths [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk.

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