Miscellaneous
Mathematics and biology sound like pretty distant relatives, but for Wanda Strychalski, an assistant professor of mathematics at Case Western Reserve University, they’re a perfect match. “I really see mathematical biology - or mathematics, as another tool or assay for lab scientists to use to try and understand really complicated data," Strychalski said. Strychalski has been developing mathematical simulations to learn how cells, especially cancer cells, migrate around your body by flexing their stiff internal structure, called a cytoskeleton, which pushes and pulls the cell’s membrane, the barrier between the cell and the outside world. “So as it’s migrating, the cytoskeleton is rearranging and then causing this motion to occur,” Strychalski said. “We start out with a minimal model based on the results from experiments, and then see if indeed, is that how it works, and usually, that's not true. So usually the one thing with the model is that we can say, well, this doesn’t happen with