Group photo of the speakers at the inaugural symposium of the new associated unit

With the creation of this unit, the I2SysBio, a joint center of the CSIC and the University of Valencia, seeks to strengthen the interdisciplinarity of the institute, making it possible for physicists and mathematicians to approach fundamental biological problems.

The Institute of Integrative Systems Biology (I2SysBio), a joint center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the University of Valencia, and the Centre de Recerca Matemàtica (CRM) organized a kick-off meeting last Friday, on the occasion of the creation of the new associated unit Dynamical Systems and Computational Virology (DySCoVir). The day, in which various conferences and talks took place, featured the presentation of José Luis García, director of I2SysBio, and Lluís Alsedà, director of the CRM, a consortium of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

The new unit is coordinated by researchers Santiago Elena, CSIC research professor at the Institute of Biology Integrative Systems (I2SysBio, CSIC - Universitat de València); Tomás Alarcón, research professor at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA); and Josep Sardanyés, researcher of the Ramón y Cajal program of the Center for Mathematical Research (CRM).

The institutional delegate of the CSIC in the Valencian Community, Juan Fuster, has pointed out that “this associated unit represents a new example of collaboration and integration in which researchers from two different disciplines share efforts to achieve results that they could not achieve separately.”

For his part, José Luis García, director of I2SysBio, added that “the units CSIC associates aim to increase the transfer of knowledge between institutions that share common interests, such as in this case the application of mathematics to biological phenomena. Without a doubt, this collaboration between the CRM and I2sysbio more than meets this objective and will enhance the research of both institutions. This is in turn the first example of I2sysbio's interest in expanding interactions with other research centers. I2SysBio explains that “the associated unit arose to provide a formal structure and facilitate an already existing cooperation between the I2SysBio Systems Evolutionary Virology group and the Nonlinear Dynamic Systems and Evolution group led by Josep Sardanyés at the CRM. The associated unit will allow this collaboration to be expanded to other groups of both institutions. Furthermore, the associated unit covers a gap that I2SysBio had until now, providing us with fundamental support in applied mathematics, modeling of complex systems and big-data analysis."

The creation of the associated unit is based on a scientific collaboration over the last few years that has explored a complementation between computational and experimental approaches to the study of the evolutionary dynamics of RNA viruses. This complementation has been bidirectional.

In the direction of mathematics to virology, through the development of mathematical and simulation models that have generated testable hypotheses about the dynamic properties of viral populations that have subsequently been evaluated experimentally in the laboratory. In the direction of virology to mathematics, when experimental observations were not intuitive, through the design of simulation models that reproduced the experiments in silico and allowed us to postulate which parameters and variables were the most relevant.

With the creation of this associated unit, the I2SysBio aims to strengthen the interdisciplinarity of the institute, increasing both directions of work and making it possible for physicists and mathematicians to approach fundamental biological problems, while scientists, training in the areas of life sciences, have access to the approaches of mathematical modeling and computational simulation.

Santiago Elena, coordinator of the Associated Unit in l'I2SysBio, explains that “the associated unit is willing to donate a formal structure and facilitate a Cooperation already exists between the I2SysBio Systems Evolutionary Virology group and the non-Linear Dynamic Systems and Evolution group led by Josep Sardanyés at the CRM. The associated unit will allow this collaboration to be expanded to other groups of all due institutions. In addition, the associated unit provides a useful tool for the I2SysBio, providing us with fundamental support in applied mathematics, modeling of complex systems and big-data analysis.”

The creation of the associated unit is based on a scientific collaboration during the last years that has explored a complementary between computational and experimental approaches to the study of the evolutionary dynamics of RNA viruses. This complementation has been bidirectional.

In the direction of mathematics to virology, it promotes the development of mathematical and simulation models that have generated testable hypotheses in favor of the dynamic properties of them. Viral populations that have subsequently been evaluated experimentally in the laboratory. In the direction of virology to mathematics, when experimental observations are not intuitive, it involves the design of simulation models that reproduce in silico the experiments and allow us to postulate which parameters and variables are the most important. rellevants.

With the creation of this associated unit, the I2SysBio aims to strengthen the interdisciplinary nature of the institute, increasing all its work directions and making it possible for physics and mathematics to approach fundamental biological problems, while scientists form part of them. Areas of life sciences have access to the approaches of mathematical modeling and computational simulation.

Source: CSIC