Math 350, Fall 2007

Mathematical Biology

Instructor          John E. McCarthy
Class                  TuTh 1.00-2.30 in 220, Cupples II
Office                 105 Cupples I
Office Hours      M 3:00-4:00, Tu 3:00-4:00, F: 12:00-1:00.
Phone                 935-6753

Text                    Modeling Differential Equations in Biology, by C. Taubes

Exams    There will be two exams in the course:

                        1) Midterm             In class, Thursday, October 11th. 
                        2) Final                  Final exam, on Wednesday December 19, 1.00-3.00, in Earth&Planetary Science Bldg, Rm 102.

Homework

There will be weekly homework sets during the semester, handed out on Thursday in class and due the following Thursday.

Project:

Each student must write a paper on a mathematical approach to a problem in biology. The paper should include a description of the biological situation, a description of the mathematical model, the predictions of the model, and a comparison of the predictions to observed data.

This paper is due on November 29th.  The topic must receive my approval by October 4th.

 

Prerequisites

Calculus 233 and Differential Equations 217, or permission of instructor.

Content

We will start out discussing the use of differential equations in biological modeling, and this will be the core of the course. We shall cover a couple of other topics, such as statistical regression. I hope to have some guest lectures from real biologists.

Basis for Grading

The project, the midterm and the homework will be 20% of your grade, the final will be 40%.

Homework

Homework is an extremely important part of the course. Whilst talking to other people about it is not dis-allowed, too often this degenerates into one person solving the problem, and other people copying them (often justified to themselves by saying "I provide the ideas, X does the details" - but the details are the key. If you can't translate the idea into a real proof, you don't understand the material well enough). So I shall introduce the following rules:
(a) You can only talk to some-one else about a problem if you have made a genuine effort to solve it yourself.
(b) You must write up the solutions on your own. Suspiciously similar write-ups will receive 0 points.

Class

I do expect you to come to class every day, and to participate in class discussions. I also expect you to stay abreast of the material we are covering, and may call on you at any time to answer a question.

 

Other Reading

Mathematical Biology by J.D. Murray

The geometry of biological time, by A.T. Winfree

An introduction to bioinformatics algorithms, by N.C. Jones and P.A. Pevzner