Biology is currently undergoing a fundamental transition from a science of qualitative discovery to a quantitative science aimed at understanding and predicting processes on a systems level.

Heidelberg University has made great efforts to promote education and research training in quantitative biology at various levels, including the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Molecular Biotechnology, the major in Systems Biology as part of the Master’s program in Molecular Biosciences  and the support of interdisciplinary postdocs and junior group leaders by BioMS. In addition, the Research Training Group (RTG) "Mathematical Modeling for the Quantitative Biosciences" (MMQB) offers a structured and comprehensive education in quantitative biology at the PhD level for the first time at Heidelberg University.

The focus of this RTG is on applying modeling, analysis and simulation methods to biological systems at different levels of abstraction - gene regulation, signaling pathways, mechanical cell properties and cell populations.

Through the broad and complementary expertise of its principal investigators, the Research Training Group MMQB will acquaint PhD students with a comprehensive array of methodologies for mathematical modeling of biological processes and computational analysis of experimental data. These include deterministic, stochastic, multiscale and spatio-temporal modeling approaches.

As a unique part of their training, the PhD students will do internships in experimental laboratories of collaborating research groups to gain first-hand experience in quantitative biological methods and to participate in planning experiments.

The Research Training Group "Mathematical Modeling for the Quantitative Biosciences" closely collaborates with the Graduate Schools Hartmut Hoffmann-Berling International Graduate School of Molecular and Cellular Biology (HBIGS), the Heidelberg Graduate School of Mathematical and Computational Methods for the Sciences (HGS MathComp), the Heidelberg Graduate School of Fundamental Physics (HGSFP) and the Graduate Academy at Heidelberg University.

Coordination:

Prof. Dr. Anna Marciniak-Czochra

BioQuant Center & Institute for Applied Mathematics

06221-5414140
anna.marciniak [at] iwr.uni-heidelberg.de