Madhav Mani (Northwestern) - Towards a Theory of Organismal Development -- From Data to Science
Part of the Autumn 2022 Distinguished Speaker Series.
In this talk, I will present our advances on the mysteries of organismal development. The path adopted is inspired by, and a synthesis of approaches at the interface of mathematics, physics, and machine learning. Through a sequence of vignettes, each seeking to distill fundamental insights from big biological data, I will attempt to bring into focus a Theory of development. The vignettes will include a study of 1) the statistical modes of natural phenotypic variation and adaptation in a study of fruit fly wings, 2) the nature of fundamental mechanical constraints and their control in a study of ascidian embryogenesis, 3) an identification of transcriptomic dynamics leveraging dynamical systems and deep-learning approaches, and 4) a mathematically rigorous approach to identifying bifurcations during cell fate specification dynamics. The overarching goal driving our investigations is a desire to construct a predictive and explanatory Theory for the whole and its emergence from its parts.
This talk will also be broadcast via Zoom. Please register to receive viewing information.
Speakers
Madhav Mani
Madhav Mani is Associate Professor of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics (ESAM) at Northwestern University. He is also an Adjunct Faculty Member of Molecular Biosciences and Founding Member of the Institute of Theoretical and Computational Soft Matter at Northwestern, and the Quantitative Biology Group Leader of the Northwestern Institute of Complex System (NICO). He is on the Leadership Council of the NSF-Simons Center for Quantitative Biology (CQuB) and is a Member of Center for Physics of Evolving Systems at the University of Chicago.
Agenda
Lunch
Available on a first come, first served basis.
