Question: how do you use maths to investigate how cells work

Rob Stanley answered on 13 Jun 2016:

I make ‘mathematical models’ based on what I’ve read about how cells work.

By model I mean a simplified version of the real world, that I can investigate to make predictions. The weather forecast is one good example of a prediction made by a model – based on lots of data and knowledge about the real world they make a computer program (a model) which can predict what the weather will be like tomorrow.

Instead of information about the weather, I look at information about the things that go on inside your cells, including what goes wrong in disease. I simplify this and write down a series of equations (my model) that I can rearrange and solve and investigate in order to make predictions.

Using these models I can play with numbers in order to see what would happen if part of the process went wrong, or what happens when we add a drug.