This project is building on an existing undergraduate major in Applied Mathematics - Biology by providing an immersive research experience in applied mathematics and biology for undergraduates in their junior and senior years. Student teams, drawn from both applied mathematics and biology backgrounds, are working on joint projects in physiology and in genomics. The projects, all active research areas of the investigators, cover the human circulation and the multi-scale dynamics that regulate blood flow, from the arterial level to the dynamics of individual blood cells in maintaining hemostasis; the dynamics of cells and cellular organisms; and the molecular biology of genes and gene function. Students work with faculty advisors and alongside graduate students and post-doctoral associates, participating in regular research meetings and seminars as well as a monthly group meeting for all the project participants. Students also participate in submission of papers for conference presentation or journal publication. The project work is coordinated with recently introduced courses and mentoring of the students and it is drawing together undergraduate students and faculty to work on innovative and challenging problems.
Intellectual Merit and Education: There has been an explosion in recent years in the quantified analysis of biological systems that requires a new look at how we educate undergraduates. This project meets the need to provide them with a background in mathematics and biological science that will prepare them as a new generation for future graduate level programs. There have been major advances in multi-scale simulations and scientific computing - both continuum and atomistic, dynamical systems, and the statistical methods applied to genomics and gene expression networks. Much of this is still only accessible to graduate students yet the excitement surrounding the topics they encompass are powerful motivations for engaging undergraduate students in research.
Broader Impact: The development of new courses, research projects and the formulation of the Applied Mathematics-Biology concentration will be valuable resources that will be shared with others in the NSF-UBM program and more generally through web-based links. The undergraduate students are also able to participate in an established outreach program for local high school students, sharing with them their experience and motivation.
