| | | Professor Reidun Twarock
~ Viral Tiling Theory ~
~ From Viral Geometry to Polyhedral Packings ~
The first of the second day's presentations illustrated beautifully the manner in which mathematics has become a key component of research in Biology. Reidun took care to tailor her talk to the audience, focussing on how the geometry of nature constrains what the biology can do, or how the biology tends to follows the path of least mathematical resistance. The focus is firmly on applications and we were treated to an insight of the cutting-edge research Reidum is involved with into developing methods to control the geometry of virus-like particles (VLPs). These have enormous potential as artificial vaccines, drug delivery systems, and personalised gene therapy. For further detail, take a look at this recent paper in which she is a co-author.
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