The Centre for Mathematical Medicine and Biology (CMMB) has experts working on a wide range of problems that span medical, biotechnology, food security and fundamental biosciences discovery. The majority of the members of the CMMB are concerned with systems medicine and biology and CMMB members also explore Epidemic Modelling and Antimicrobial Resistance.
Students at the University of Nottingham can join our Student Chapter of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) for free.
Systems Medicine and Biology
Research has been supported by a range of grants, fellowships and networks, including:
- AirPROM - an international network of researchers working on patient-specific modelling for asthma and respiratory disease.
- MNN - a UK network of researchers working in mathematical neuroscience.
- MSBnet - a UK network of researchers interested in multiscale biology.
- Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) - a European network of scientists and clinicians working on biomedical modelling and simulation of the human body.
CMMB members have helped to develop a number of software tools to aid efficient simulation of a range of models tailored to a particular situation, e.g. CHaSTE, a general purpose simulation package aimed at solving demanding problems arising in biology and physiology.
CMMB members have created Study Groups in the areas of Mathematics in Medicine (2000), Mathematics in the Plant Sciences (2007) and Virtual Physiological Human Study Groups (2009 ).
Members of the CMMB are involved with the Centre for Plant Integrative Biology (CPIB) at Nottingham. Together they work on problems of interest in plant systems biology, for example in bacterial biofuels, enhanced photosynthesis and plant growth, including the vSEED and FUTUREROOTS programmes. CMMB has close ties to The University of Nottingham’s Future Food Beacon and the Modelling and Analytics for a Sustainable Society (MASS) interdisciplinary doctoral training centre.
Epidemic Modelling
Epidemic Modelling uses mathematics to study the mechanisms underlying the spread of infectious diseases such as influenza, foot-and-mouth disease, AIDS and Ebola. The subgroup has particular expertise in stochastic models.
- Modelling epidemics with a structured underlying population (e.g. households, random networks, hospital wards and farms)
- Rigorous analysis of stochastic epidemic models
- Analysis of disease outbreak data
- Bayesian computational methods for infectious disease data
- Assessing if future disease outbreaks can be prevented
- Analysis of the effect of intervention strategies such as vaccination
The subgroup has strong collaborative links with institutions such as Public Health England, leading UK Hospitals such as Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, and The University of Nottingham’s School of Veterinary Medicine and Science.
Antimicrobial Resistance
Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) occurs when microbes develop defences against the drugs which are designed to kill or reduce them. "Bridging the Gaps: Systems-level approaches to antimicrobial resistance" was an EPSRC funded programme of funding and activities aimed at furthering the understanding of AMR in real world interactions. Researchers continue to work closely with the Precision Imaging Beacon and the Centre for Neural Computation.