Multiscale modelling of hormone dynamics to understand how drought affects plant growth

Project description

Multiscale biological models involve coupling cellular and subcellular processes to understand how they impact the emergent growth and development of the organ or organism. These models typically involve coupling multiple smaller models, for example, coupling ODE network models, multicellular models, fluid dynamics or biomechanical growth models. This project will involve developing a novel multiscale model to understand how hormones influence plant growth. This understanding is of fundamental importance to determine how crop yields are affected by environmental stresses, such as drought. Given food security is one of the most pressing issues of this century, such knowledge is essential to developing crops that can sustain high yields despite climate change.

It is well established that plant hormones, such as auxin and GA, orchestrate growth and responses to environmental stress. However, despite its importance, we lack fundamental knowledge of how the overall hormone distribution is regulated, and how this impacts plant growth and responses to environmental conditions such as drought. The relative importance of local synthesis, cell-to-cell transport, and long-distance transport (through advection with water) is unknown. This project will address this question by developing novel multiscale models, including processes such as multicellular models, fluid dynamics, advection-diffusion equations and ODE network modelling.

The models will be developed in collaboration with biologists within Plant Science at the University of Nottingham and with Dr Alexander Jones at the University of Cambridge. Experience with ODEs/PDEs and mathematical biology would be beneficial, although prior knowledge of plants or the specific biology is not required.