FSU bio-mathematician Bhargav Karamched’s research focuses on understanding the behavior of genes through mathematical models and uncovering the molecular basis for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. That involves applying dynamic systems for understanding how things evolve over time and considering the behavior of genes in terms of feedback loops, in which a system’s output amplifies or inhibits the system’s inputs.

“Biology is becoming more quantitative, and oftentimes biologists have lots of data from which a mathematician or statistician can derive patterns. I try to look for motifs in the biological data that are common at all scales to develop minimal models, which describe not only a very specific occurrence but also point to patterns that lie at the heart of biology.”

• Bhargav Karamched