SGER: Applying control engineering concepts for understanding biological regulation

Iowa State University, Ames IA

Investigators

Abstract

0123496 Khammash The objective of the proposed research is to study examples of biological feedback regulation mechanisms using the tools of dynamical systems and feedback control theory, and to use the results to shed new understanding on the operation of these systems in health and disease. In achieving this objective, The PI seeks to identify functional modules that serve specific feedback control roles, to determine the physiological basis of these modules, and to understand the extent to which such modules generalize to other regulatory systems and across hierarchical scales. These questions are key in addressing the long-term objective to develop a unified framework for analyzing homeostatic mechanisms--one that is centered on feedback control theory concepts and language, and takes into account known physiology. It is believed that such a framework will make it possible to make new progress in the understanding of those complex biological and chemical processes involved in homeostasis and the functional modules that these processes constitute, based on the functional constraints that are imposed on these modules by the necessities of feedback and robustness.