Course content

• Examples of simple models to understand different types of biological processes such as Lotka-Voltera model, simple epidemic model, reaction-diffusion models, drift-diffusion models.
• Introductions to stochastic processes in biology, Introduction to Fokker-Planck and Langevin equations.
• Introduction to computer simulations.
• Introductions to different types of simulations-Molecular Dynamics, Monte Carlo and Langevin dynamics simulations.
• Simple examples of application of direct Monte Carlo simulation and Gillespie algorithm to a number of simple stochastic biological systems.

References

• Physical Biology of the Cell, R Phillips, J Kondev, J. Theriot, Garland Science, 2009.
• A Course in Mathematical Biology: Quantitative Modeling with Mathematical and Computational Methods, Gerda de Vries, Thomas Hillen, Mark Lewis, Birgitt Schõnfisch, Johannes Muller, SIAM, 2006.
• Dynamic Models in Biology, Stephen P. Ellner, John Guckenheimer, Princeton University Press, 2006.