The Center for Statistical and Computational Modeling of Biological Complexity at Missouri University of Science and Technology is open for business and seeking faculty researchers to join its mission of shared discovery.
Formed in July 2014, the center is a research incubator designed to promote collaboration to answer fundamental questions related to biological complexity and ecological systems. In discovering patterns, researchers hope to understand and better address health, industrial and environmental problems. The center draws on researchers from biological sciences, mathematics and statistics, computer science, and engineering disciplines.
“The center allows interaction among professors,” says Dr. Ron Frank, associate professor of biological science and the center’s director. “Interdisciplinary is the big word right now.”
“Serendipitous discoveries are par for the course in this type of research,” says Dr. V.A. Samaranayake, Curators’ Teaching Professor of mathematics and statistics. “This is actually what is exciting about this research.”
The research works in a feedback loop, with biology experiments providing mathematicians and statisticians with data to test hypotheses and build models. Results from these tell biologists where to go in their next round of experiments.
“It’s exploratory,” says Dr. Matt Thimgan, assistant professor of biology at Missouri S&T. “We don’t know exactly what we’re looking for.”
Reviewed 2015-03-03