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Of cows and calculus: how mammals regulate blood calcium with precision

Thursday December 19 12.00-13.00 Mustafa Khammash gave a seminar Of cows and calculus: how mammals regulate blood calcium with precision at Polacksbacken.

About the speaker

Mustafah Khammash is Professor of Control Theory and Systems Biology in the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH-Zürich. He works in the areas of control theory, systems biology, and synthetic biology. His research aims to understand the role of dynamics, feedback, and randomness in biology, and to develop the tools needed to aid in this understanding.

Abstract

In mammals, maintaining the blood concentration of calcium within small tolerances is crucial for the function of many physiological processes, including proper nerve and muscle function. The regulation of calcium is achieved by an exquisite feedback control mechanism that ensures constant plasma calcium levels in spite of disturbances that would otherwise push the system away from equilibrium. Using a simple mathematical model, we show how this feedback mechanism functions dynamically to achieve robust set-point tracking. In particular, we demonstrate that the perfect adaptation property of mammalian calcium regulation system imposes stringent constraints on the structure of the regulatory system. Such constraints lead to a new understanding of the role of the hormones involved in calcium regulation. The elucidation of the dynamics of the calcium homeostatic system sheds light on parturient paresis, a common disease associated with calving in dairy cows.

Updated  2015-10-23 17:09:18 by Kurt Otto.