turkmath.org

Molecular biology is a relatively new branch of science. Despite (or maybe because of) that, it has gone through several revolutionary changes. Technological advances in the last 10 or 15 years now allow scientists to produce huge amounts of data at very low costs. Therefore this has created the need of developing new mathematical tools to analyze and understand these results. For nearly 80 years the emphasis of molecular biology was to perform repetitive and expensive experiments that did not require advanced modeling. Today the scenario is the opposite, but many researchers lack the training to answer the meaningful questions. This presents an interesting opportunity for mathematicians who want to apply their abilities to areas that can have deep effects on health, industry and the understanding of nature. In this talk, I will speak about the work I did with my former lab in Chile and which were the challenges we encountered. In this context, I will present some of the mathematical questions that are relevant for modern molecular biology.