Mark Alber
Director of the Center,
Department of Mathematics,
University of California, Riverside
Mark Alber is working on several interdisciplinary projects combining multi-scale mathematical modeling and experimentation. Mathematical and computer models allow researchers to perform virtual experiments that are currently impossible in the lab. Coupled with live imaging experiments and new image analysis methods, these experiments will yield insights into biological mechanisms governing organ formation in plants and animals and development of cancer in epithelial cell layers of the colon.
Another collaborative project with University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine is on multi-scale modeling and empirical study of a mechanism limiting blood clot growth. Thrombosis is a major cause of death in the developed world and results from the growth of thrombi (blood clots forming within blood vessels) that restricts blood flow to vital organs. The project integrates multi-scale modeling and experiments to examine novel hypothesis related to the role of fibrin networks in processes halting thrombus growth. This will help physicians to estimate risk of thrombotic disease for an individual patient by identifying critical values of parameters of processes regulating thrombogenesis.
Selected publications:
1. Samuel Britton, Oleg Kim, Francesco Pancaldi, Zhiliang Xu, Rustem I. Litvinov, John W.Weisel, Mark Alber [2019], Contribution of nascent cohesive fiber-fiber interactions to the non-linear elasticity of fibrin networks under tensile load, Acta Biomaterialia 2019 May 30. pii: S1742-7061(19)30395-2. doi: 10.1016/j.actbio.2019.05.068. [Epub ahead of print].
2. Banwarth-Kuhn M., Nematbakhsh A., Rodriguez KW., Snipes S., Rasmussen CG., Reddy GV., Alber M. [2018], Cell-Based Model of the Generation and Maintenance of the Shape and Structure of the Multilayered Shoot Apical Meristem of Arabidopsis thaliana. Bull. Math. Biol. 2018 Dec 14. doi: 10.1007/s11538-018-00547-z. [Epub ahead of print]
3. Oleg V. Kim, Rustem I. Litvinov, Mark S. Alber and John W. Weisel [2017], Quantitative Structural Mechanobiology of Platelet-Driven Blood Clot Contraction, Nature Communications 8: 1274 (authors for correspondence: J.W. Weisel and M. Alber).