Speaker: Suzanne Sindi, University of California at Merced

Prion proteins are responsible for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases in mammals, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Most mathematical models of prion dynamics have focused either on the protein dynamics in isolation, or on prion dynamics in a population of cells by considering “average” behavior. Both approaches fail to recreate observed properties of prions in organisms. We develop physiologically relevant mathematical models by considering both the prion aggregates and their host organism. We validate our models and infer parameters through carefully designed experiments. We’ll discuss two recent results. First, an adaptation of an existing model to a stochastic context, producing the first successful amplification of an aggregate—a key component of prion disease. Second, in recent individual-based simulations, we study how the organization of a yeast population depends on the division and growth properties of the colonies.

For more information, http://web.sonoma.edu/math/