Hwayeon Ryu, assistant professor of mathematics, published a paper in Journal of Theoretical Biology on investigating stochastic behaviors in the macrophage differentiation process.
Assistant Professor of Mathematics Hwayeon Ryu has published a peer-reviewed paper entitled “Macrophage phenotype transitions in a stochastic gene-regulatory network model” in Journal of Theoretical Biology, one of prestigious journals in the field of computational biology.
This work was from international collaboration with three other mathematical biologists including Susanna Röblitz and Anna Frank, both at the University of Bergen in Norway, partially funded by American Institute of Mathematics through its three-year Structured Quartet Research Ensembles program. In this collaboration, Ryu and co-authors develop and analyze a stochastic model for macrophage phenotype transitions, which extends their previous paper on a deterministic model. Our new approach allows for a probabilistic interpretation of macrophage phenotype transitions and biological inference on phenotype robustness. In general, the methodology can easily be adapted to other systems where random state switches are known to occur.
Journal of Theoretical Biology, established in 1961, is one of highly cited, top journals in the field of computational biology. It is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering theoretical biology, as well as mathematical, computational and statistical aspects of biology. Some research areas covered by the journal include cell biology, evolutionary biology, population genetics, morphogenesis, and immunology.
A. S. Frank, K. Larripa, H. Ryu, and S. Röblitz, Macrophage phenotype transitions in a stochastic gene-regulatory network model, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 575:111634, 2023