Mathematics Colloquia and Seminars

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In this talk I will describe mathematical models and questions that arise when studying the molecular biology of viruses. In the first part of the talk, I will describe problems that arise when studying DNA packing in bacterial viruses. This problem can be thought of as a rope confined into a small volume and that as a consequence gets knotted, and undergoes a liquid crystalline phase transition. Consequently, new problems in stochastic knot theory, continuum mechanics of liquid crystals and numerical analysis naturally arise. Since February 2020 our group has been studying the molecular evolution of the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV2) which can be tracked using stochastic methods, topological data analysis, machine learning and biophysical modeling. Questions on how to properly develop and combine these methods will be discussed.