Mathematical Biology is an active and growing research area in the Mathematics Institute, and Warwick in general. Mathematical immunology, epidemiology, ecology and genetics are the main areas in the department, exploiting mathematical techniques from both the deterministic (ODEs, PDEs) and stochastic arenas. Interaction with biologists is fundamental to much of the research activities. David Rand, Nigel Burroughs and Matt Keeling lead the research activities in mathematical biology in the department, overseeing a research group comprising a number of post-docs and students. The Scientific Computing Center will further increase research interests in mathematical biology, specifically in computation and simulation of cells and cell processes.

David Rand has a long history of interest mathematical biology, from spatial heterogeneity driven evolution of sex and altruism, pair models in epidemiology and ecology, to the more recent activities in T cell activation in immunology and genetic circuits in clocks. Dynamical ideas underlies many of these areas, although both dynamical systems and stochastic methods are used.

Nigel Burroughs uses a diverse array of tools to model problems in immunology, microbiology and phylogenetics. Models at both the cellular level, eg PDEs for movement of receptors on a cell surface, and the population level, based on ecological principles, are used dependent up on the best approach for the question at hand. Areas include T cell activation, cytoskeletal dynamics, image analysis and gene flow. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques are used to analyse microsatellite data, extracting mutational process and demographic parameters. In a collaboration with Biological Sciences, an amoeba bacteria ecology is being investigated, which involves the analysis of video images.

Matt Keeling is using mathematical models to understand the roles of spatial heterogeneity and stochasticity in population dynamics. Theoretical issues focus on techniques such as moment-closure or pair-wise approximations which provide simple models of complex biological processes. Applied interests are mainly epidemiological, modelling the dynamics and spread of diseases such as foot-and-mouth, bubonic plague and measles.

David Epstein is interested in phylogenetic tree construction, on the basis of sequence data. He is also interested in combinatorial, computational and statistical issues which arise in the study of proteins in cell biology. He works with Mike Khan and Stella Pelengaris of the Molecular Medicine research group.

Ian Stewart is developing a theory of pattern formation in networks of dynamical systems, with applications to animal locomotion, neuroscience, and ecosystems. This research is joint with groups at Houston and Boston.

Other interests represented in the department include pattern formation and spiral waves, eg cardiac arthymias: Dwight Barkley; molecular biology: Robert MacKay.

The Mathematics in Medicine Initiative (MiMI) unifies many of the medically related interests in the University, and together with the MIR@W program, we acheive a high flux of visitors and exposure to a diversity of mathematical biology. Within Warwick significant interaction is acheived with Mike Chappell and Keith Godfrey in Engineering (pharmacokinetics, sleep apnoea, molecular epidemiology) and Graham Medley and James Nokes in Biology (epidemiology, vaccination).