Center Seminars & Workshops

The size of the nucleus scales robustly with cell size so that the nuclear-to-cell size—the N/C ratio—is maintained during growth in many cell types. To address the fundamental question of how cells maintain the size of their organelles despite the constant turnover of proteins and biomolecules, we consider a model based on osmotic force balance, which predicts a stable nuclear-to-cell size ratio, in good agreement with experiments on the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We model the synthesis of macromolecules during growth using chemical kinetics and demonstrate how the N/C ratio is maintained in homeostasis. We compare the variance in the N/C ratio predicted by the model to that observed experimentally.

Machine Learning (ML) aims at extracting information and knowledge from data. ML is naturally interdisciplinary, as it bridges fundamental techniques of data analysis, typically developed by mathematicians, statisticians and computer scientists, with the needs of actionable insights that are specific to the particular application domain. Mechanism-driven models are based on the principles of physics and physiology and allow for identification of cause-to-effect relationships among interplaying factors in a complex system. While invaluable for causality, mechanism-driven models are often based on simplifying assumptions to make them tractable for analysis and simulation; however, this often brings into question their relevance beyond theoretical explorations. The combination of mechanism-driven and data-driven models allows us to harness the advantages of both approaches, as mechanism-driven models excel at interpretability but suffer from a lack of scalability, while data-driven models are excellent at scale but suffer in terms of generalizability and insights for hypothesis generation. This combined, integrative approach represents the pillar of the interdisciplinary approach to data science that will be discussed in this talk, with applications spanning from glaucoma research to cardiovascular monitoring and physiology of the lower urinary tract (LUT).