Mathematical Biology

General. Biological systems are incredibly complex, and our understanding of that complexity is increasing all the time. Fifty or a hundred year ago, when most biological systems were understood in far less detail, loosely defined mental models of "how things work" were enough to describe all we needed to describe in biology. Since then, our understanding of biology has sky-rocketed, and so has the need for sophisticated mathematical tools to understand and model this expanding "new" universe.

Research in our department includes a range of topics, such as the evolution of drug-resistance in HIV, the population genetics of E. coli, blood flow through the arteries, complexity theory in biology, population dynamics, interactions of maturation delay and spatial dispersion, the spread of infectious diseases, and biological invasion. We offer a third year course and a graduate course which introduce a wide range of research areas in Mathematical Biology, and run a weekly seminar series, "Flower Hour".

Research groups.

• L. Wahl, Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Biology
  • Official web page
  • Personal

• G. Wild
  • Official web page
  • Personal

• M. Zamir (Emeritus)
  • Official web page

• X. Zou
  • Official web page
  • Personal

Representative publications:

1. Modeling relapse in infectious disease
   P. van den Driessche and X. Zou
   Mathematical Biosciences, in press.

2. Interaction of maturation delay and nonlinear birth in population and epidemic models
   K. Cooke, P. van den Driessche and X. Zou
   Mathematical Biology 39, 332-352 (1999).

3. Fixation probabilities depend on life history: fecundity, generation time and survival in a burst-death model
   Alexander, H.K. and Wahl, L.M.
   Evolution, 62 (7): 1600-1609 (2008).

4. Optimal drug treatment regimens for HIV depend on adherence
   Krakovska, O. and Wahl, L.M.
   Journal of Theoretical Biology , 246: 499-509, (2007)

5. Using information theory to search for functional domains in proteins
   Martin, L.C., Gloor, G.B., Dunn, S.D. and Wahl, L.M.
   Bioinformatics, 21 (22): 4116-4124 (2005)