Chair of Computational Mathematics Seminar: Measuring the Speed of Biochemical Reactions

COMPUTATIONAL MATHEMATICS SEMINAR


Measuring the Speed of Biochemical Reactions

Ryan Evans
Applied and Computational Mathematics Division,
National Institute of Standards and Technology (U.S.A.)
Abstract
Many biochemical reactions involve a stream of chemical reactants flowing through a fluid-filled volume, over a surface to which receptors are confined.
Such surface-volume reactions occur during blood clotting, drug-protein interactions, and DNA-damage repair.
Scientists measure reaction rate constants associated with these reactions using optical biosensors: an instrument in which reactants are convected through a flow-cell, over a surface to which other reactants are immobilized.
Scientists currently study biosensor experiments which involve multiple interacting components on the sensor surface. We discuss a partial differential equation model for multiple-component reactions in optical biosensors. Thanks to high Peclet number flow, this model reduces to a set of nonlinear
integrodifferential equations for the reacting species concentrations, which in turn reduces to a set of ordinary differential equations which can be used to measure rate constants using biosensor data. We conclude by discussing
recent developments on a related problem concerning instruments involved in
creating personalized medicine.