The cycle of conferences “Diderot Mathematical Forum” was introduced by the European Mathematical Society (EMS, ) in 1996 (see here for the editions before 2001 and here for the last Diderot Forum). Each conference takes place simultaneously in three European cities exchanging information by videoconferences, addresses a specific topic, and has both a research and a public component. This year the topic is “Biomedical Applications of Mathematics” , the locations Paris, Madrid and Milan. The event is organized by the Raising Public Committee of the European Mathematical Society.

General organizers: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, Silvia Benvenuti, Roberto Natalini.

Diderot Mathematical forum 2016: Biomedical Applications of Mathematics

(Paris, Madrid, Milan). March 15, 2016

So far, there have been six Diderot Mathematical Forums: “Mathematics and finance” (London, Moscow, Zürich, 1996), “Mathematics and environment: Problems related to water” (Amsterdam, Madrid, Venice, 1997), “Mathematics as a force of cultural evolution” (Berlin, Florence, Krakow, 1998), “Mathematics and music” (Lisbon, Paris, Vienna, 1999), “Mathematics and telecommunications” (Eindhoven, Helsinki, Lausanne, 2001), “Mathematics of planet Earth” (Berlin, Exeter, Zagreb, 2013).

Mathematics has strong connections with many other fields. The Diderot forums aim to emphasize such connections, focusing each time on a different topic. Once a topic has been selected, the idea is to invite mathematicians who are the top level experts in the field to give conferences, sharing knowledge and viewpoints with other top experts.

The format, taking advantage of new telecommunication technologies, is capable to overcome geographical and logistic barriers, estabishing a network of knoledge immediately available to interested parties. Each Diderot forum is an opportunity to take stock of the chosen topic, providing the audience, in sala as well as on line, with reliable and updated information, unlike to what often happens with the information available on the web.

Mathematics has become more and more important for various areas of the biological sciences due to the increasing availability of data and new data sources. In fact, the new investigation techniques and the need to organize and interpret an enormous amount of data and biological information deeply require the involvement of mathematics, including computational and statistical methods, both in biological and biomedical research and in the understanding of the medical problems (diagnosis, epidemiology, clinical medicine, …). Moreover, analysis and numerical simulation of mathematical models in the broader life sciences are emerging as a further investigative tool to be attached to other experimental or theoretical methods. Among the advantages that a mathematical model in biology or medicine could have we can remember: predict the evolution of a biological system under different conditions without redoing experiences or in situations which are not experimentally verifiable; quantitatively validate biological hypotheses; investigate properties of biological materials; suggest experiments; highlight links between various underlying biological entities through the analysis of experimental data and any underlying phenomena. Apart from this it must be remembered the contribution of mathematics to the development of the methods of investigation, for instance the methods of reconstruction and visualization of medical images for non-invasive techniques (CT, computerized tomography, or MRI, Magnetic Resonance.Here are some biomedical areas in which mathematics is nowadays widely used: Epidemiology and Clinical Research, Science omics (genomics, proteomics, pharmacogenomics, …), Mathematical modeling, Analysis of signals and biomedical images.

Here you find the links for the streaming of the conferences, which will be active on the day of the event. Please, stay tuned!

Streaming link for Paris

Streaming link for Madrid

Streaming link for Milan