Biomath 2025 School for Young Scientists (SYS)

The school is integrated with the conference. The participants in the Scholl are also participants in the conference and are expected to deliver an oral presentation or a poster. Below are the acrtivities which are specifically for the School. Please note that the dedicated to the School lectures are of more introductory nature giving foundations and insight into the respective topic rather then focusing on new results and are presented by some of the keynote speakers of the conference. All PhD students and early career researchers (not more than 6 years from PhD) participating in the conference are considered members of the school, unless they indicate otherwise. There is no additional fee for the School.

Certificates
Certificates for successful completion of the School for Young Scientist (SYS) are issued to participants who have made a conference presentation (talk or poster) and attended all activities of the school.

Schedule of SYS activities
15 June 2025, 17:45 - 18:00: Organisational Meeting
Venue: Lecture Hall in the Institute of Mechanics (5th floor)

15 June 2025, 18:00 - 18:50: Dedicated SYS Lecture
Title: To be announced
Presenter: To be announced
Venue: Lecture Hall in the Institute of Mechanics


15 June 2025, 19:00 – 20:30: Meeting of SYS with Keynote Speaker and members of ISC and OK
Venue: Restaurant of the Hotel of the Academy
(Finger supper included)

16 June 2025, 8:10 - 9:00
Dedicated SYS Lecture
Title: Phenotype structuring in collective cell migration: a tutorial of PDE models and methods
Presenter: Tommaso Lorenzi
Venue: to be announced
Populations are heterogeneous, deviating in numerous ways. Phenotypic diversity refers to the range of traits or characteristics across a population, where for cells this could be the levels of signalling, movement, and growth activity, etc. Clearly, the phenotypic distribution – and how this changes over time and space – could be a major determinant of population-level dynamics. In this lecture, I will discuss how classical partial ifferential equation (PDE) approaches for modelling cellular systems and collective cell migration can be extended to include phenotypic structuring. The resulting non-local PDE models form an interesting class of models with rich dynamics. I will set the scene through a short review of extensions of several classic PDE models – including the Fisher-KPP and Keller-Segel equations – into a non-local form. I will then proceed with a tutorial-style presentation on key qualitative properties of the solutions to these models and mathematical methods that have been developed to study such properties, recounting travelling waves in PDE models of spatial spread dynamics and concentration phenomena in non-local PDE models of evolutionary dynamics, and combining the two to deduce phenotypic structuring across travelling waves in non-local PDE models of collective cell migration.
Reference:
T. Lorenzi, K.J. Painter, C. Villa, Phenotype structuring in collective cell migration: a tutorial of mathematical models and methods, J. Math. Biol., accepted, 2025

17 June 2025, 18:00 - 19:00: Dedicated SYS Lecture
Title: Curing Cancer with Calculus
Presenter: Helen Byrne
Venue: Lecture Hall in the Institute of Mechanics
Over the past twenty-five years, our understanding of cancer biology has advanced significantly. At the same time, mathematical modelling has become a powerful tool for exploring the intricate mechanisms underlying tumour initiation and progression. The associated models support the formulation and testing of hypotheses derived from experimental and clinical data and contribute to the development of new approaches for treating cancer. In this lecture, we will explore a range of modelling techniques used to study the growth of solid tumours and their response to radiotherapy. The discussion will range from basic, phenomenological models that view the tumour as a uniform mass, to more detailed approaches that account for the subcellular dynamics of the cell cycle and how it is influenced by fluctuating oxygen levels. Finally, we will examine spatially-resolved multiphase models that represent tumours as heterogeneous systems comprising viable tumour cells, necrotic debris, and extracellular fluid, and distinguish between different tumour cell phenotypes.

Articles related to the organisation of the School for Young Scientists:
Biomathematical Conferences and Schools for Young Scientists at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Integrating learning and research at the "Biomath" conference series

More about the SYS organization:
The plenary and keynote lecturers are asked to present their lectures in a suitable form for the broad audience and the SYS participants are asked to attend these lectures and are encouraged to ask questions. In addition, several of the established scholars known to have PhD students are asked to present lectures dedicated to the school with the aim of providing introduction to their area of expertise and broadening the scientific horizon of the participants. . In this way the School for young scientists is fully integrated with the conference in the sense that both young scientists and many of the established scholars participate in the learning process. At an earliest occation the participating young scientists are gathered at a meeting and are instructed about the specific arrangement of the conference.
The integration of the SYS and the scientific conference enables certain benefits such as:
-- the distance between established lecturers and students diminishes or even vanishes;
-- students actively participate in the presentations as posing questions after lectures give them more scores; there is little possibility for the students to "sleep" during lectures (as may happen with traditional tutorial courses);
-- established scholars have the opportunity to know good students and students have the opportunity to make contacts with prestigeuos professors;
--during the open tasks sessions students learn about important biomathematical problems;
-- students recieve useful practical information related to their career;