Department Colloquium: The Physics of Human Aging

Speaker

Andrew Rutenberg, Dalhousie

Abstract

The best studied aging organisms are humans. Large individually-tracked “longitudinal” studies are burgeoning and allow us to model the detailed aging process, including death. I will discuss three fundamental questions. What are the variables of aging? What are the dynamics of aging? What interactions are important in aging dynamics? I will show how top-down data-driven models, bottom-up conceptual models, and “middle-out” models help us to answer these questions using the available data. Along the way I will tell you about complex networks, deep-learning, stochastic simulation, and stability analysis.  Finally, I will tell you about open questions that remain to be solved.