BIOM&S Seminar: Mathematical Medicine: Rational Solutions and Insights to Complex Problems

SPEAKER:  Sivabal Sivaloganathan, University of Waterloo

ABSTRACT:

Mathematics has been inextricably entwined in nearly every facet of human society, ranging from the food, transportation industries to the energy and aerospace industries and to yet other more esoteric endeavours. However, until the last few decades, the Biomedical Sciences remained a "final frontier”, where the mathematical sciences still had not made inroads and had yet to make as profound an impact as it has in these other areas. However, in the last 30-40 years, the situation has changed dramatically, and it is now fairly commonplace to find mathematicians involved in interdisciplinary research groups working on problems in the biomedical sciences. This augurs well for the Biomedical Sciences, and may well presage a time when the synergy between the Mathematical and Biomedical Sciences leads to as dramatic advances as witnessed in the last century by the interaction between Mathematics and Physics. I will illustrate in this talk, how the prudent application of Ockham’s Razor leads to simple mathematical models of medical conditions, which nevertheless give significant insights and suggest possible therapeutic interventions. In short, I suggest (through these illustrative examples) that mathematics is already contributing to profound advances in the biomedical sciences.