BIOINFORMATICS SEMINAR SERIES
https://bioinformatics.udel.edu/seminar
CBCB Seminar
April 21, 2025 3:30 PM
Ammon-Pinizzotto Biopharmaceutical Innovation (BPI) Building
Conference Room 140
A BioGraphy of Life: Modeling Biology with Dots and Lines
John Jungck, PhD
Professor of Biological Sciences and Mathematical Sciences
University of Delaware
Abstract: Graph theory is to biology as calculus is to physics. Biologists have long used graphs such as phylogenetic trees, pedigrees, fate maps, sequences, restriction maps, metabolic pathways, interactomes, protein interaction networks, kidney donation chains, and food webs. Unfortunately, often these powerful abstractions of enormous amounts of biological data are not appreciated either for the graph theoretic principles involved in their construction nor the additional insights that might be inferred by further graph theoretic investigation of the data used to construct such visualizations. Topological representations are scale free of the constraints of Euclidean geometry’s focus on metrics of angles, areas, volumes, etc. and so apply from the molecular to ecological levels of biology. I will illustrate how some basic ideas of graph theory ideas such as Delaunay triangulations, interval graphs, Voronoi tessellations, graph grammars, trees, networks, bipartite graphs, Eulerian and Hamiltonian paths and cycles, Dürer nets, Schlegel diagrams, and triad profile analysis have informed my research in mathematical biology.
Biography: Jungck is a Professor of Biological Sciences and Mathematical Sciences. He was recruited in 2012 to the University of Delaware as the inaugural Director of the Interdisciplinary Science Learning Labs (ISE Lab) to staff, equip, furnish the labs and problem-based learning studios, facilitate integrated curricular development, and promote interdisciplinarity of campus. To this end on campus, he is the co-organizer of the annual Nobel Symposia, International Darwin Days, and the series of Tuesday Tech Talks as well as lead workshops for faculty as Associate Director of ITUE (Institute for Transforming University Education). In 1986, he founded the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium (<QUBEShub.org>) which continues to promote a philosophy of problem-posing, problem solving, and peer review as well as the integration of much more mathematics in biology education.. His honors include Fellow of AAAS, AIBS (American Institute of Biological Sciences), SICB (Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology), ACUBE (Association of College and University Educators), and NABT (National Association of Biology Teachers); recipient of the Bruce Alberts Award from ASCB (American Society for Cell Biology) and the T. H. Huxley Award from SSE (Society for the Study of Evolution); and SMB (Society for Mathematical Biology) has an award in his name for Excellence in Mathematical Biology Education. He formerly edited four journals and currently still serves on the editorial board of the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, Evolutionary Bioinformatics, Mathematics, and the American Journal of Undergraduate Research.