Nonlinear effects in life sciences

Abstract

This topical issue collects contributions of recent achievements and scientific progress related to the connection between nonlinear dynamics and life sciences. The individual papers focus on different questions of present day interest in both theoretical and applied aspects of nonlinear dynamics in applied to life sciences.

The nonlinearity of regulation in biological networks

“…Research on the ‘nonlinearity’ front has hitherto focused on its various manifestations in the dynamics of biological systems, such as chaos, bifurcation, multistability, synchronization, patterning, dissipation, etc. [1], but a characterization of regulatory nonlinearity among the components of the underlying systems that give rise to those phenomena is lacking. A more complete understanding of biological regulatory nonlinearity would not yield insights into their design principles [2] but also have theoretical implications ranging from canalization to control [3, 4] and practical implications for biomedical therapy, synthetic biology, etc.…”

“…A more complete understanding of biological regulatory nonlinearity would not yield insights into their design principles [2] but also have theoretical implications ranging from canalization to control [3, 4] and practical implications for biomedical therapy, synthetic biology, etc. [1, 5]. A good example of this concerns the mapping between molecular or genetic information and the resulting system-level anatomical structure and function of an organism.…”

Burden of cytokines storm on prognosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection through immune response: dynamic analysis and optimal control with immunomodulatory therapy

“…The control effort limits the fall of healthy cells and tissues due to cytokines storm which may enable the system/body to fight the virus further. The mathematical knowledge used to describe, predict and control biological systems relies on the approaches of non-linear dynamics [ 11 ]. Similar to physics, for understanding the complex and nonlinear systems, within host cell mechanisms may too require some current interactive and interdisciplinary research through which mathematical models motivated by data can provide understandings of the cytokines immune response-virus mechanism.…”

Analysing an epidemic–economic model in the presence of novel corona virus infection: capital stabilization, media effect, and the role of vaccine

“…Again, epidemic models [ 3 – 6 ] can address the spread of infection, mortality, morbidity, recoveries, and role of vaccinations, but cannot contribute directly for analysing economic damage/possible recovery. The pandemic being a health issue at its core is a multifaceted crisis [ 7 ] encompassing both economic and epidemic factors in a twisted tale of challenges like capacity constraints in form of reduced labor due to infections, supply-chain disruptions due to partial and complete lock downs, and competition for global influence in form of effective vaccines [ 1 ]. Addressing former issues, a combined epidemic–economic model can act as a lodestar to not only analyse economy v/s infections but to make effective forecasts imbibing both financial and health factors in direct relationship with each other.…”