Math backbone in biology/genetics?

Question

[dshulgin]

Hi, everyone!

I don't have any biological background.

The problem is I don't see any good math model in genetics interactions except combinatorics. I'd like to know what else math structures and rules are there in genetics. I'd like create strong math backbone for better understanding genetics, but I can't find any advanced reliable sources for that. Are there any books that could help me?

Are there any good books, that shows some advanced math models in genetics?

Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

[dariober]

I think your question is too vague. In terms of textbooks, I would suggest these two to have an idea of what's out there in terms of math applied to genetics (first book) and biology in general:

• http://www.amazon.co.uk/Genetics-Analysis-Quantitative-Traits-Michael/dp/0878934812
• http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biologists-Mathematical-Modeling-Ecology-Evolution/dp/0691123446

[dshulgin]

Thanks. I've just noticed, the more I study genetics, the more uncertainty I get due to many many empirical information, but I really like to study it like math with logical rules etc.

[Israel Barrantes]

I really like to study it like math with logical rules

There are very few "rules" in Biology, and this is due to the complexity of evolution: lateral gene transfers, coevolution, paralogy, etc. Even topics that are more or less standard, e.g. the genetic code, have a layer and then hundreds of exceptions. The best is always to stick to the rules applying to the set of organisms/tissue/life stages you are studying.

[dshulgin]

I understand. Bad wording, but I'm still interested in some math basement of these processes. Maybe I'm wrong, but I like to bring everything I study in abstract rules field as much as possible.

Answer 2

[DG]

It really depends what you want to do. There is a lot of quite advanced math that is used in biology, bioinformatics, and genetics. Population Genetics and Molecular Evolution are two fields where some of the biggest names are statisticians who have made huge contributions to both fields through their work. I worked in Molecular Evolution for my PhD work and the math there is fairly heavy, depending on how far you want to get into the nuts and bolts versus focusing more on the biology.

For applying math/logic to biology in general just be careful. A ton of physicists and mathematicians have approached it naively thinking they were going to solve all of biology in a year or two with their brilliance. Some have made good contributions, probably many more had their hubris treated appropriately. While there is underlying mechanisms that can be modelled mathematically, biology is inherently noisy and sloppy.

[dshulgin]

Yeah, thanks for answer.

I just try to order all the rules of genetics I know in one logical structure for better understanding. But I can't because there is so much additional empirical rules are got from simple observation.

I understand, that biology is more or less observation science, but it makes me a bit upset.

For example.

We have simple combinatorical model in alleles interaction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance )

okay.

But we also have Incomplete dominance.

okay, but we have a couple of alleles interactions out of our simple model like epistasis.

That doesn't look like a math model anymore.

[dariober]

Yes... And I would add, what makes biology tricky, not to say a mess, is not only the complexity of it but especially that evolution is purposeless and it's a bad "hacker". So if I see a complex biochemical pathway I'm tempted to speculate that it is complex for some good reason, but actually it might be complex because evolution hacked it together like a bad coder. In this respect, I would suggest this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Origins-Genome-Architecture-Michael-Lynch/dp/0878934847