Highlights of Mathematical Biology

Ellen Baake (Bielefeld, Kloostermanhoogleraar)

Mathematisch Instituut, Universiteit Leiden
Niels Bohrweg 1, Leiden

Dates

Donderdag 15 februari (11.00-12.30, zaal 403).
Donderdag 22 februari, 1 maart, 8 maart (13:45-15:30, zaal 409).

Samenvatting

The interaction of biological theory and experiment, together with mathematical modelling, have led to important breakthroughs in many areas of biology and opened up new fields of applications for mathematics. A few milestones will be presented in this lecture series. Various areas of biology and mathematics will be touched upon. Mathematical methods will include probability theory, differential equations, discrete mathematics, and differential geometry.

Tentative titles of the 4 lectures are:

1. The Gordian DNA knot
   (enzymatic scissors and differential geometry)
2. Adam and Eve, or our evolutionary history
   (the coalescent process)
3. Genetic mixing
   (dynamics of recombination)
4. BLAST and sequence similarity
   (random walks and the statistics of excursions)