Theoretical Tools for Phenotype Control in Discrete Networks

Title: Theoretical tools for phenotype control in discrete networks Abstract: Deriving theoretical tools and developing efficient computational algorithms for the identification of optimal intervention strategies is an important goal in mathematical biology. The intervention strategies can be used to change the state of a network from an undesirable condition into another desirable state. The identification of potential interventions can be achieved through mathematical modeling by finding appropriate input manipulations in the model that represent external interventions. The type of mathematical models that will be considered are discrete dynamical systems which include the widely used Boolean networks and their generalizations. This project fill focus on the development of tools for phenotype control in discrete networks. Phenotype control is an active research area in control theory and network control, which distinguishes itself from the classical control theory in that 1. its objectives are related to the dynamical attractors of nonlinear systems and 2. it focuses in open-loop interventions (i.e., on cases where the intervention cannot be adjusted based on the state of the system). This type of control is appropriate for many applications in biology and biomedicine but a well-developed theory and practical algorithms for phenotype control are currently lacking, which will be the contributions of this project. Additionally, this project will focus on the development of theoretical tools for quantifying the total number of changes that results from the application of an intervention to produce a desired effect. The algorithms will be implemented into software that will be publicly available to the broader research community.