Research
The research activities of the Biological Physics group at NORDITA are
concerned with the theoretical modelling of complex phenomena as
occuring in, or inspired by, living systems. Some examples of research
interests are described below:
Neural Network Dynamics
The firing of nerve cells in the cortex is driven more by the fluctuations
than by the net mean input. In particular, cortical circuitry shares key
features with spin glasses: disorder and competing interactions
which roughly balance each other. Motivated by this, a mean field theory
like that for spin glasses has been developed.
Modelling of Dynamics of Single Molecules
Work in the physics of single DNA molecules include: (i) the
breathing dynamics of double-stranded DNA, and how the dynamics is
influenced by external parameters; (ii) The diffusive search
of a binding protein of its designed target sequence along the
genome; (iii) the competition of thermal fluctuations and the complex
topology of DNA-knots.
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Modelling Genetic Regulatory Networks
There are ongoing projects concerning modelling and characterization
of networks, including comparison of phage networks, information flow
in networks and characterization of topological features of various
real-world networks. Biological interest includes building models of
genetic regulatory systems.
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