题 目：Variational multiscale models for biomolecules

报告人：Guowei Wei教授（Department of Mathematics,   Michigan State University，wei@math.msu.edu）

时 间：2012年5月30日10:30

地 点：华中科技大学力学系三楼会议室（南一楼E320）

邀请人：胡元太教授，胡洪平副教授

报告摘要：A major feature of biological sciences in the 21st Century will be their transition from phenomenological and descriptive disciplines to quantitative and predictive ones. Revolutionary opportunities have emerged for mathematically driven advances in biological research. However, the emergence of complexity in self-organizing biological systems poses fabulous challenges to their quantitative description because of the excessively high dimensionality. A crucial question is how to reduce the number of degrees of freedom, while preserving the fundamental physics in complex biological systems. This work focuses on a new variational multiscale paradigm for biomolecular systems. Under the physiological condition, most biological processes, such as protein folding, ion channel transport and signal transduction, occur in water, which consists of 65-90 percent of human cell mass. Therefore, it is desirable to describe membrane protein by discrete atomic and/or quantum mechanical variables; while treating the aqueous environment as a dielectric or hydrodynamic continuum. I will discuss the use of differential geometry for coupling microscopic and macroscopic scales on an equal footing. Based on the variational principle, we derive the coupled Poisson-Boltzmann, Nernst-Planck (or Kohn-Sham), Laplace-Beltrami and Navier-Stokes equations for the structure, dynamics and transport of ion-channel systems. As a consistency check, our models reproduce appropriate solvation models at equilibrium. Moreover, our model predictions are intensively validated by experimental data. Mathematical challenges include the well-posedness and numerical analysis of coupled partial differential equations (PDEs) under physical and biological constraints, lack of maximum-minimum principle, effectiveness of the multiscale approximation, and the modeling of more complex biomolecular phenomena.

报告人简介：Guowei Wei教授是美国Michigan State University终身教授，国际著名非线性理论生物学家，计算物理权威。他在国际杂志上发表了170多篇论文，其中包括多篇物理评论快报（Phys. Rev. Lett.），h-index 32，论文被引用3000多次。他为6个国际学术杂志的荣誉主编、副主编或国际编委。

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