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Qualifying exam: Jordan Collignon

November 18, 2021 - 10:30am

Applied Mathematics graduate student Jordan Collignon will be giving his qualifying exam this week. All are invited to attend the public lecture.

His seminar will be given in person and simultaneously broadcast on Zoom.

Title: Spatial Modeling of Heterogeneous Phenotype Structures in Yeast Colonies

Date: Thursday, November 18th at 10:30am

Location (In-person and online):
ACS 362B
https://ucmerced.zoom.us/j/81370984291?pwd=V3Y3WSsvWVpDNmFRSlkvdzc5eWcrUT09

Meeting ID: 813 7098 4291
Passcode: 443599

Abstract:
It is challenging to build meaningful models of biological systems that are calibrated to experimental data. In yeast colonies, the presence of multiple phenotypes indicates a loss of infectious agents within the cell. At present, we lack both a model that explains these sectored phenotypes and a method for validating such a model from experiments. In my work, I seek to address this gap with a data-driven approach that integrates experimental data of sectored yeast colonies with the construction of an agent-based model of growing budding yeast colonies. I first discuss my previously published work developing an agent-based model of budding yeast and apply mathematical techniques to analyze colony structure. Next, I explain my ongoing work to use image analysis techniques to create a high-throughput pipeline allowing us to extract information about the size and structure of colonies found in image data. I close by proposing to merge these projects together to create a framework that will allow us to adapt our agent-based model to the conditions observed in experiments so that the model both captures sectoring behavior and allows us to predict the mechanisms driving sectoring behavior.