Phenomenological models in biological physics : cell growth and pluripotency maintenance
Name
713659214-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
12.67 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
861590ddf492cc32237bbe21f75d2ec0
Author(s)
Youk, Hyun
Advisor(s)
Alexander van Oudenaarden.
Date Issued
2010
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
A persistent challenge in quantitatively modeling a biological system is that the system often involves many components and just as dizzying number of interactions among those components. To further complicate matters, the parameters that characterize those interactions and components, like the rates of chemical reactions and concentrations of molecules inside the cell, have evaded detection by the conventional experimental tools. How does one model a system whose crucial parameters are unknown? And even if we know all the parameters inside the cell, there is an increasing uneasiness among many researchers that just writing down an equation for every interaction and components of the system is not practical. Crucially, it is not clear that such an extensive many-parameter model would always enhance our understanding of the complex biological system. A phenomenological model that involves just a few essential, easily measurable parameters that capture the essence of the complex biological system may provide insights that a many-parameter, large scale model may not provide. In this thesis, we describe our attempts at obtaining such a model for two complex biological systems: 1.) Cell growth as a result of glucose metabolism, and 2.) in vitro maintenance of the embryonic stem cell's pluripotency by a complex transcriptional network.
Description
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2010.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references.
Subjects
Physics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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