Masayasu MIMURA
Department of Mathematics, Meiji Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Meiji University
Mathematics Moving Towards Biology - Modelling and analysis of reaction diffusion systems -

Abstract: In the mid-sixteenth century, epoch-making scientific fields which are called "molecular biology" and "molecular genetics" came into life sciences. It was surprisingly understood that genes play crucial roles in living systems and the mechanisms must be generically controlled. We therefore had believed that any biological form, growth and patterns arising in the systems could be revealed, if the mechanism of genes could be completely known. Under these situation, in1952, a mathematician Alan Turing suggested that genes provided a blueprint for biological processes and how genetic information was physically translated into necessary evidences, by using a simple differential equations. This is the birth of reaction-diffusion systems from biological application viewpoints. Since then, mathematics of reaction-diffusion systems has been continuously moving towards biological systems. In this lecture, I would like to discuss how modelling and analysis of reaction-diffusion systems have contributed to not only mathematical sciences but also biological sciences.