Part of the Mathematics Commons, and the Respiratory Tract Diseases Commons

Mathematical biologists try to describe biological phenomena quantitatively using mathematics. This is done by developing and analyzing mathematical models, which are sets of mathematical equations that describe the behavior of a biological system. Depending on their form, certain mathematical models are used to obtain very detailed and accurate predictions in biological phenomena, while others are employed to gain insights into the link between morphogenic (structural) form and biological function. Both types of models have numerous and important applications. Mathematical biology is a very broad field. Anyone who has ever tried to use mathematics to predict how a population of humans or fish changes over time, the chances that a newborn will be color-blind if one of the parents is color-blind, or the concentrations of calcium and potassium ions in a neuron has engaged in mathematical biology. Mathematical biology is also a very old field, at least in some aspects. For example, population modeling has been performed for hundreds of years. Today, however, the field is rapidly growing, owing largely to the rise of computer power. With the advent of advanced computational capabilit