I will survey a few problems and areas on which my research has focused
in recent years. One area is that of the molecular machinary that
controlls motility of living cells: the actin cytoskeleton. I will
describe how work has proceeded from the small scale investigations of
the "parts list" to more global modelling of dynamics of actin
filaments and how these lead to the force of protrusion in cell
motility. (This work has been joint with G.B. Ermentrout and
A. Mogilner)
I will then briefly survey some of the more recent biomedically related
projects, including modelling of Alzheimer's Disease (joint with
A. Spiros) and Type 1 Diabetes (with AFM Maree and Diane Finegood).
The common thread in the latter projects is the involvment of
inflammation and the immune system. My main goal will be to highlight
the synergy between the mathematical models and insight or
understanding of underlying mechanisms in the biological systems.
(These project have been funded by MITACS.)
