Nataša Jonoska

University of South Florida

Day 2 (April 20) @ 15:30 – 16:30 Keynote

Title: From Molecules to Mathematics

DNA self-assembly as a method to construct nanostructures is celebrating its 40 anniversary this year. The field gave impetus to an emerging branch of mathematics, which we coin as ‘DNA mathematics’. DNA mathematics models and analyzes structures obtained as bottom-up assembly, as well as the process of self-assembly. We survey some of the mathematical tools that can help advance the science of DNA self-assembly. The theory needed to develop these tools is now driving the field of mathematics in new and exciting directions. In our presentation we focus particularly on the topics related to knot theory and graph theory.

Biography

Nataša Jonoska is a Distinguished Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. Her research interests are in theoretical and computational models of molecular self-assembly and molecular biology. She has had extensive research collaborations with experimentalists in molecular biology and structural DNA nano technology. She holds a PhD degree in Mathematical Sciences from the State University of New York in Binghamton NY, USA  and since 2014 she is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her work on three-dimensional DNA self-assembly as computing models has been awarded with a Rozenberg Tulip Award in DNA Computing and Molecular Programming by the International Society for Nanoscale Science and Computing. Her work has been/is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Health (NIH), the W.M. Keck Foundation and for 2022 she is a Simons Fellow in Mathematics. For ten years she served as a Chair of the annual DNA Computing and Molecular Programming conference and co-chaired the annual Unconventional Computing and Natural Computing conference. She also serves on editorial boards of several journals including Theoretical Computer Science, Natural Computing, Computability, International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science, and has edited nine books on these topics. In 2021 the Florida section of Mathematical Association of America awarded her with the MAA award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics.