ICMAT Newsletter #17 Second semester 2018 CSIC - UAM - UC3M - UCM EDITORIAL Challenges of Mathematical Biology Andreas Deutsch (TU Dresden). A hiking mathematical biologist only be possible from strong support by mathematical and encounters a shepherd. The shepherd is so happy that he offers computational methods at the data acquisition, representation the mathematical biologist one of his sheep should he be able to and interpretation level. Together with specialists from relat- calculate the exact number of individuals in his herd. The math- ed disciplines as bioinformatics and biophysics, mathematical ematical biologist estimates the number to perfection. Later one methods are applied to more and more biological systems and can watch the mathematical biologist hiking further together medical problems. Rather new and hot applications are in the with the shepherd’s dog. This joke nicely expresses the essence fields of bioengineering, biological regeneration, immunology, of mathematical biology but also the danger of mathematical infectious diseases or personalised tumour therapy. Besides abstraction. The strength of mathematical biology is not just to the need for developing models for particular biological and calculate quantities but to abstract common patterns at different medical problems, mathematical biology helps to extract gen- biological organisation levels which is exaggerated by the math- eral principles of complex systems. A better understanding of ematical biologist above. The interface between the biological such principles can be further exploited as bio-inspired solu- problem and the mathematical analysis is the model. Mathemat- tions for technological applications. ical biology fosters mathematical reasoning to the explanation of biological phenomena, and can provoke new types of mathe- (Continued on the next page) matical problems. Thus, ecological interactions have motivated new questions in mathematical game theory, and properties of cancer cells have triggered the study of density-dependent dif- fusion equations. CONTENTS Today mathematical biology bustles with activity. Under the new umbrella of systems biology and medicine it offers promising perspectives for mathematicians, physicists, and theoretical- Editorial: Andreas Deutsch (TU Dresden)................1 ly interested biologists. Many new institutes, curricula, and re- Interview: José Antonio Carrillo search networks in systems biology and medicine manifest this (Imperial College de Londres).................................3 boom. However, a boom raises suspicion and might offer only short-term perspectives. So the question is: is there also a long- Report: From cursed to coveted..............................5 term perspective? Article: The mathematics of the immune system....8 First of all, mathematical biology is nothing new! There are Bal- ICMAT Questionnaire: Benoit Perthame tic, British, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian roots (Sorbonne University)...........................................10 ranging back to the end of the 19th century. Mathematical biology was initially triggered by enormous amounts of ‘’data’’ arising Tell me about your thesis: Beatriz Pascual..........11 from new observations (e.g. from expeditions into colonial coun- She Does Maths: Rosana Rodriguez tries) and new experimental techniques. The famous Mendel (University of Santiago de Compostela)................14 experiments and a fertile communication between experimen- Scientific Review: “Long term dynamics for the tal biologists and applied mathematicians in the 1930’s marked the beginnings of population genetics and created a nucleus for restricted N -body problem with mean motion mathematical biology. resonances and crossing singularities”...............15 Scientific Review: “Brauer correspondent blocks Responsible for the recently experienced boom of systems with one simple module”......................................16 biology is again a data jungle, now called big data and pre- dominantly stemming from new molecular biological methods Profile: David Alfaya (ICMAT)................................17 together with the concurrent rapid development of high per- ICMAT News.........................................................18 formance computing capabilities. As the 20th century was the ‘’century of physics’’, the 21st century will be the ‘’century of Agenda.................................................................23 biology and medicine’’, and the essential developments will 1 (Continued from the previous page) Personally, I had been interested already during school days in there and can now be successfully analysed with the cellular mathematics AND biology. So what should I do? I consulted a automaton models developed long before (see A. Deutsch, S. professor of biology who advised me to concentrate on a full Dormann, Cellular Automaton Modeling of Biological Pattern mathematical study and subsequently get involved in biology, Formation, Birkhauser,Boston, 2018). for example through a PhD. This turned out to be a very good Further information on conferences, curricula, schools, and advice which is applicable still today. While biology has a mod- open positions can be found at the websites of the two leading ular structure - the different fields as cell biology, evolution or societies in the field, the European Society for Mathematical and ecology can be studied quite independently of each other – the Theoretical Biology (www.esmtb.org) and the Society for Mathe- mathematical curriculum follows a sequential order. One needs matical Biology (www.smb.org). A key activity within the Year of an introduction to the basics as analysis, linear algebra and nu- Mathematical Biology is the 11th European Conference on Math- merics before one can proceed with advanced topics like differ- ematical and Theoretical Biology, Lisbon, July 23 – 27, 2018. ential equations, or stochastics. During my PhD it became clear that doing ‘wet experiments’ and ‘dry modelling’ together was not a long-term perspective because both aspects are highly demanding. Today, I am head of the department ‘’Methods of In- novative Computing’’ at the Centre for High Performance Com- puting at Dresden University of Technology. My research group develops and analyses mathematical models, algorithms and simulations in the dry-lab, but in very close cooperation with biological and medical wet-labs. Andreas Deutsch is the head of the department for Inno- Given the enormous amount of biological and medical data that vative Methods of Computing at the Technische Universität already exist and that can be expected there seems to be enough Dresden (Germany). He has a diploma in mathematics, a to do for mathematical biologists in the coming decades. How- PhD in biology, and a habilitation in theoretical biology. ever, having to decide for a personal career direction I would not recommend a ‘data-driven’ but ‘interest-driven’ decision. More info: https://tu-dresden.de/zih/die-einrichtung/ For example, early in my career I started to develop cellular struktur/andreas-deutsch automaton models although there was not much biological data available for this kind of model at that time. Today the data are Image: Sergio Martínez of Austin, US Martínez of Austin, Image: Sergio Image of a cellular automaton. 2 ICMAT Newsletter #17 Second semester 2018 INTERVIEW: José Antonio Carrillo, researcher at Imperial College London, and until December 2017 chairperson of the European Mathematical Society (EMS) Committee of Applied Mathematics “For mathematics, biology is now what physics was in the early 19th century, an inexhaustible source of interesting problems” José Antonio Carrillo is one of the instigators for the year 2018 being declared as the Year of Mathematical Biology, a joint initiative by the European Society for Mathemat- ical and Theoretical Biology (ESMTB) and the European José Antonio Carrillo Mathematical Society (EMS), where in the latter institu- tion he was the chairperson of the Committee of Applied Image: Mathematics between 2014 and 2017. It is no coincidence that his field of research is in partial differential equa- tions, of which he says that “they’re one of the most im- portant mathematical tools for the modelling of life and the socio-economic sciences”. Since 2012, Carrillo has held a chair in Applied and Nu- merical Analysis at Imperial College in London. Prior to that, from 1998 to 2000, he was Research Professor with the Institución Catalana de Investigación y Estudios Avanza- dos (ICREA) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. During this same period he was a professor at the Uni- versity of Texas in Austin (USA), and before that he had XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. held positions of associate and tenured professor at the University of Granada, where he also completed his PhD. José Antonio Carrillo (Imperial College of London) has been one of the promoters of the celebration in 2018 of the Year of Mathema- tical Biology. Elvira del Pozo The idea of advocating the role of mathematics in biology was And after a year, “that activity” became a single theme devot- in part due to you. Why is that? ed to this discipline. Why is it so important? Yes, I was one of the forerunners during my time on the EMS For mathematics, biology is now what physics was in the early Committee of Applied Mathematics. I and other colleagues 19th century, an incentive, an inexhaustible source of interesting put forward the idea of organizing some kind of activity as a problems. And while