The Art of Theoretical Biology

Franziska Matthäus studied biophysics at the Humboldt University in Berlin and received her PhD from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. She worked as a postdoc, group leader and junior professor in Heidelberg and Würzburg and now holds the Giersch-Professorship Bioinformatics at the Goethe University Frankfurt, affiliated with the Frankfurt Institute for Applied Sciences (FIAS). She is interested in the chemical and mechanical regulation of cell motility, and uses a combination of image and data analysis as well as mathematical models to better understand how collective behavior or patterns emerge from internal regulation and cell-cell interaction.

Sebastian Matthäus studied communication design at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, Germany. Since 2006 he is founder and head of the graphic design firm called “Grenzfarben” in Berlin, Germany. He is an expert in illustration & animation, works for large German newspapers and firms, but also supports interactive exhibitions.

Dr Sarah Anne Harris is Associate Professor of Biological Physics at the University of Leeds. She has always been interested in understanding how biological systems perform their amazing functions within the confines of the laws of physics. While her undergraduate degree is in Physics from the University of Oxford, she then obtained her PhD from the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham in 2001. She is now in the Theoretical Physics group in the School of Physics and Astronomy, and part of the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology. Her research uses high performance supercomputing to model how biological molecules move and interact.

Thomas Hillen, Dr. rer. nat., is Professor and Associate Chair Research at the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at the University of Alberta in Canada. He studied at the Universities of Münster and Tübingen in Germany, before he moved to Canada in 2001. He has published five textbooks and over 80 journal publications. Currently, Dr. Hillen is President of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematical Society (CAIMS). Dr. Hillen’s research is focused on mathematical modelling of cancer and cancer treatment. He is motivated to use advanced mathematical methods for the common good.