The future of biological research depends partly on mathematics.
Math is a key framework for organizing and making sense of the
vast amounts of biological data that scientists have generated
in recent years. For example, mathematical models are a powerful
way to understand complex biological systems. To bring more
mathematicians into biological research, the National Institutes
of Health and the National Science Foundation are partnering on
a math-biology initiative. A component of this effort is an NSF-
NIH symposium on "Accelerating Mathematical-Biological Linkages"
on Wednesday, February 12, 2003. The symposium will highlight
research opportunities at the math-biology interface and
encourage collaboration between mathematicians and biological
scientists. As an illustration of the breadth of topics that
mathematicians and biologists can address together, symposium
sessions will cover conservation ecology, cell structure and
function, and bioinformatics and computational problems. The
keynote speaker will be