BICO subgroup (Biosystems Identification, Control & Optimization)
Our research focuses on the modeling of dynamical systems, with a particular interest on biological applications. We are specialized in three tasks: developing methods for building and analysing nonlinear models, implementing them in open source software tools, and applying them to the study of biological systems.
Group picture, February 2025
This week, Sandra Díaz and Alejandro F. Villaverde are in Bratislava to attend the 14th IFAC Symposium on Dynamics and Control of Process Systems, including Biosystems (DYCOPS 2025). They will deliver a keynote titled "Analysing Control-Theoretic Properties of Nonlinear Synthetic Biology Circuits". Co-authors include Antón Pardo, Dorin Alexandru Ionescu, and Antonis Papachristodoulou.
Today, Xabier and Adriana participated in a science fair in Lalín, as part of the outreach work of the DYNAMO-bio project, to present an interactive artificial pancreas system. The activity was aimed at primary school children and explained the roles of glucose, insulin, and how diabetes affects the body.
This week, Alejandro F. Villaverde is participating as a group leader in the ICERM workshop on Uncertainty Quantification for Mathematical Biology, which takes place in Providence, RI, USA. Looking forward to many discussions and presentations on this fascinating topic!
Our new paper has been posted to biorxiv: "Response metrics of T-cell activation models" (doi:10.1101/2025.04.28.650960). It is the result of a long collaboration on the area of immunology with José Faro, who was the instigator; Xabier Rey Barreiro is the first author and did a lot of work.
Today we had the second meeting of the DYNAMO-bio project. It was great to know the new additions to the team, and to realize that some progress has already been made on a number of tasks.
The paper "Employing Observability Rank Conditions for Taking into Account Experimental Information a priori" has been published at the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology and can be accessed here. Furthermore, our paper with Antonis Papachristodoulou on "Analysing control-theoretic properties of nonlinear synthetic biology circuits" has been accepted at DYCOPS 2025.
Today we welcome Mahmoud Shams Falavarjani to our group. Mahmoud, who studied chemical engineering at Babol Noshirvani University of Technology and at the University of Isfahan (Iran), will work on the DYNAMO-bio project. Looking forward to working together!
Today we have presented a poster at the Biocontrol Workshop 2024. Co-authored by Antón, Sandra, Alexandru, Alex, and Antonis Papachristodoulou (Oxford), it highlights results from our latest arxiv preprint.
We have a couple of recent papers in arxiv: "Observability rank conditions for analysing practical identifiability a priori" (arXiv:2410.06984) and "Analysing control-theoretic properties of nonlinear synthetic biology circuits" (arXiv:2411.05450).
