WiMB Journal Club

In early September 2020, I attended the Piforum conference, a “PhD Application Bootcamp for female (and N&B) mathematicians”.

I learnt useful stuff towards the coming applications, but the best part was meeting MANY students who shared my interest in Mathematical Biology.

We thought it would be nice to have something like a math-bio study group, to discuss topics that we find interesting, share resources, find graduate programs, etc. So we now have journal club!

We have given it the name Women in Mathematical Biology, or WiMB for sort.

We plan on having weekly our biweekly sessions, each lead by one of us. Topics for each week will be selected by the respective leader. We all have different backgrounds and interests (biostatistics, genetics, molecular biology, epidemiology, etc), so we will all learn new stuff!

If you’d be interested to join, do let me know! The only requirements are to be interested in mathematical biology (or related) and to identify as female or non-binary.

This page will hopefully serve to keep a log of what we do and suggest further reading.

1.

Led by Maria (me!). We looked at this paper on an actively controlled SIS epidemic model. I made an (informal) summary of the paper.

2.

Led by Hettie. We looked at STIs, especifically:

Alison M. Wardlaw and Aneil F. Agrawal’s, ‘Sexual Conflict and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs): Coevolution of Sexually Antagonistic Host Traits with an STI’

3.

Led by Rachel. We looked at:

Lo Giudice et al. ‘Single-cell transcriptional logic of cell-fate specification and axon
guidance in early-born retinal neurons.‘

4.

Led by Ilina, on medical statistics:

Gazzard et al. ‘Selective laser trabeculoplasty versus eye drops for first-line
treatment of ocular hypertension and glaucoma (LiGHT):
a multicentre randomised controlled trial.’

5.

Prof Karen Page gave a talk at The Piscopia Initiative on “Mathematics applied to embryo development”.

6.

We’ll be having a Christmas break for a while, but I am giving a talk at the Part III Seminar Series on “Statistical Field Theory in Biological Systems” on Friday the 4th.

7.

17/02/2021. Run by myself, a presentation on my 2019 summer project, about persisters phenotypes in microbial communities.

8.

03/03/2021. Run by Hettie, on her MMath thesis about STIs.

9.

[Upcoming, 22/03/2021] By Rachel, about her dissertation work on using matrix factorisation methods to identify transcriptional signatures.