UA News

The $1 million training grant awarded to the Arizona Research Laboratories at the UA will help prepare graduate students for careers that integrate math and biology.

Biology, once largely descriptive science that relied on biologists observing and describing in words what they saw, has evolved into a discipline that more often relies on mathematical models. 

This is driving the need for researchers trained in biology and also in mathematical and computational techniques who can use computers and mathematics to obtain better understanding of biological systems.

The Arizona Research Laboratories at The University of Arizona with grant funding from the National Institutes of Health will be able to train graduate students to do just that. 

Timothy W. Secomb director of the Arizona Research Laboratory's Division of Microcirculation, is the principal investigator on the "Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Biomedical Systems" grant, which will be funded at about $1 million for five years. 

"Arizona Research Laboratories is proud to support Dr. Timothy Secomb, who is at the cutting edge of theoretical modeling in microcirculation research, helping to solve critical problems with diseases that concern and impact human health worldwide," said Michael Cusanovich, director of the Arizona Research Laboratories.

"His interdisciplinary expertise is reflected in the numerous other grants he has received from the NIH," Cusanovich said, adding that Secomb is an international leader in his field and collaborates with scientists at Duke University and in Germany and New Zealand. 

"We're proud, too, of his work as an educator and pleased that he will positively influence even more students in the next five years with the funding allowed by this grant," Cusanovich added.

Only ten other universities have been awarded funds from NIH for this type of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Predoctoral training program from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

In modern biology, the emphasis is on measurement and on giving results in numerical form, such as the heart rate, or in digital form, such as the DNA sequences. This trend has increased the need for mathematical models, in which the components of a system and their interactions are expressed in equations or computer simulations. 

Mathematical models can be used to obtain better understanding of how biological systems work, and to predict how the body will respond to drugs or other treatments.  Theoretical approaches are increasingly important in developing new methods for diagnosis and treatment of diseases. 

The UA's interdisciplinary programs and tradition of collaborations across boundaries provide the rare environment needed for this effort. The goal of the training program is to provide students with the ability to communicate and collaborate across traditional disciplinary boundaries and to work with researchers with complementary expertise.

"Here at the University of Arizona, we have a history going back about 20 years of training students in the interdisciplinary application of mathematics to problems in biology" said Secomb, a BIO5 Institute member and applied mathematician who also has appointments in the UA's physiology and mathematics departments.

"This grant from NIH represents recognition of our previous work in this area, and will allow us to continue training the next generation of mathematical modelers of biological systems," said Secomb, also a pioneer and leader in the interdisciplinary linking of biology and mathematics.

Twenty-two faculty members will cooperate across three broad areas:  molecular dynamics; cellular processes; and physiology and pathophysiology. Secomb joined Arizona Research Laboratories 1981 with appointments in physiology and mathematics because of the unique interdisciplinary position and the opportunities it offered. 

The project will open with three students and ramp up to six student positions. UA students will be drawn from existing UA programs, such as applied mathematics and biochemistry and also molecular and cellular biology. 

Students will take the required coursework in their own programs and, in addition, will take graduate courses in bioinformatics, biostatistics and mathematical modeling. 

For their doctoral dissertations, they will carry out research applying theoretical approaches to biomedical problems.

Secomb said: "We'll be setting our trainees on a career path that will be very important to science in the twenty-first century."