For additional information see Mark S. Alber's Personal Page.

See also The Condensed Matter and Biophysics Group

Research Interests

My mathematical research interests are in dynamical systems treatment of nonlinear partial differential equations with applications to biology and nonlinear optics,

I am participating in an interdisciplinary Biocomplexity program at Notre Dame which is supported by NSF. Biocomplexity is the study of the unique complex structures and behaviors that arise from the interaction of biological entities (molecules, cells, or organisms). While physical and chemical processes give rise to a great variety of spatial and temporal structures, the complexity of even the simplest biological phenomena is infinitely richer.

Our Biocomplexity group studies multicellular aggregates, such as embryonic and mature tissues, which often share the properties of "excitable media" and "soft matter," familiar to modern condensed matter physics and dynamical systems theory. Changes in tissue shape and form during development and repair-skeletal formation, gastrulation, segmentation, are well suited to analysis by physical and mathematical concepts, particularly in conjunction with modern knowledge of cells' adhesive forces and the molecular composition and rheology of cytoplasm and extracellular matrix.

Selected Publications

• Sozinova, O., Y. Jiang, D. Kaiser, and M. Alber, A Three-Dimensional Model of Myxobacterial Aggregation by Contact-mediated Interactions, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102 No.32, 11308-11312, 2005.
• Sozinova, O., Y. Jiang, D. Kaiser, and M. Alber, A Three-Dimensional Model of Fruiting Body Formation, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103 No.46, 17255-17259, 2006.
• Alber, M., Chen, N., Lushnikov, P., and S. Newman, Continuous macroscopic limit of a discrete stochastic model for interaction of living cells, Physical Review Letters 99 168102, 2007.
• Xu, Z., Chen, N., Shadden, S., Marsden, J.E., Kamocka, M.M., Rosen, E.D., and M.S. Alber, Study of Blood Flow Impact on Growth of Thrombi Using a Multiscale Model, Soft Matter 5, 769 -779, 2009.
  
• Wu, Y., Jiang, Y., Kaiser, D., and M. Alber, Periodic reversal of direction allows Myxobacteria to swarm, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 106 4 1222-1227 (featured in the Nature News, January 20th, 2009, doi:10.1038/news.2009.43), 2009.