Theory and Tools for Complex Biological Systems
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Strathclyde
Department Name: Mathematics and Statistics
Abstract
There are many circumstances in real life where patterns of connecitivityare important. For example, to understand how a disease may spread around a population,how a virus may spread around a computer network or how signals are passed around the brain, wemust have some idea of the `wiring' between components. By studying the typicalpatterns in many real life networks, including data concerning connectivity between brain neurons, computers, web pages, people, co-authors and telephone users, scientistshave discovered common features that seem to be universal. Also, they have come upwith rules that appear to govern the development of real life networks. Often, it is necessary to summarize such an enormously complex set of information, perhaps byfinding clusters of objects that behave similarly or by ordering the objects in a natrual manner,so that neighbours have similar features.This project will develop new computational tools for organizing large data sets and for explaining the patterens of connectivity that are observed. To give the work a firm grounding, all ideas will be tested on real, cutting-edge data concerning the behaviour of genes and proteinsin the cell. This aspect of the project work will be done in close collaboration with colleagues from the life sciences, notably cancer researchers from the Beatson Institute in Glasgow. These colleagues will help us to formulate the right questions. Further, after we have designed the new computational algorithms, these colleagues will also help us to interpret the answers. Any new findings in this important biological application could have direct benfits to healthcare and drug design.
People |
ORCID iD |
Desmond Higham (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Xiao X
(2011)
Exploring metabolic pathway disruption in the subchronic phencyclidine model of schizophrenia with the Generalized Singular Value Decomposition.
in BMC systems biology
Taylor A
(2009)
CONTEST A Controllable Test Matrix Toolbox for MATLAB
in ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software
Taylor A
(2011)
Discovering bipartite substructure in directed networks
in LMS Journal of Computation and Mathematics
Kuchaiev O
(2009)
Geometric de-noising of protein-protein interaction networks.
in PLoS computational biology
Intep S
(2009)
Switching and Diffusion Models for Gene Regulation Networks
in Multiscale Modeling & Simulation
Higham D
(2011)
Hybrid simulation of autoregulation within transcription and translation
in BIT Numerical Mathematics
Grindrod P
(2009)
Periodic reordering
in IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis
Grindrod P
(2009)
Evolving graphs: dynamical models, inverse problems and propagation
in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
Estrada E
(2009)
Communicability betweenness in complex networks
in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
Dawson N
(2014)
Subanesthetic ketamine treatment promotes abnormal interactions between neural subsystems and alters the properties of functional brain networks.
in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology
Description | New techniques for discovering communities and other structures in large scale biological networks |
Exploitation Route | Spectral clustering and its use in bioinformatics DJ Higham, G Kalna, M Kibble Journal of computational and applied mathematics 204 (1), 25-37 has 100 academic citations on Google Scholar. This work also led naturally into our work on large scale technological networks: EP/1016058/1 |
Sectors | Healthcare Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology |
Description | EPSRC |
Amount | £30,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | RAIS at University of Strathclyde |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start |
Description | EPSRC |
Amount | £181,000 (GBP) |
Funding ID | EP/I016058/1 |
Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start |
Description | Joint research with University of Bath |
Organisation | University of Bath |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | University of Strathclyde researchers worked on this project with researchers from University of Bath |
Start Year | 2007 |