The answer could lie with mathematics, says researcher These days when a biologist, a medical researcher or even a psychologist wants to set up an experiment, the chances are they will contact a mathematician. Such interest in what was once a little-understood discipline, says the University of Washington's J ames Murray, indicates how mathematics is now seen as an engine of change.
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A member of the UW faculty since 1988, Murray over the past 20 years has been largely responsible for the international creation of the new field of mathematical biology, the application of mathematics to biomedical sciences. A native of Scotland, he was the first professor of mathematical biology at the University of Oxford. In the 1980s he was the founding director of Oxford's prestigious Centre for Mathematical Biology. He has written three books on the subject, co-edited three others and written about 200 journal articles. At the heart of Murray's work is the mathematical model, a series of equ ations that predict how fundamental biological systems will act on one another.