DYNAMIC BIOSYSTEM MODELING & SIMULATION METHODOLOGY : INTEGRATED & ACCESSIBLE - THIRD EDITION

Dynamic Biosystem Modeling & Simulation is a full color textbook in its third edition, written for undergraduate courses in the life sciences, mathematics, computer science and engineering. This revision draws on two years of classroom use of the second edition and on student responses to it, and adds new and updated material. Its focus is on how to decide what to model and simulate in dynamic biological systems.

The book is introductory and suits students who have taken or are taking their undergraduate math and basic science requirements. Graduate students and working researchers who want a more rigorous treatment of mechanistic mathematical modeling in biology, integrated with the biology itself, will also find it useful. The author has taught dynamic biosystems modeling and simulation methodology to life science students for more than 57 years, and this is his third book on the subject. His aim was to make the material easier to access without weakening its conceptual rigor. The book brings the multidisciplinary content of these fields into a single introductory course and includes the applied math and systems engineering methods required, along with a summary of the biology and physiology that underlie dynamic biosystem models. It is intended for sophomores in the life sciences and for entry-level students in bioengineering, computer science, mathematics, pharmacology and other interdisciplinary programs.

The text starts with morphology, meaning physical form and mechanistic structure, and then moves to more abstract paradigms such as network and compartmental diagrams, block diagrams and directed graphs. Alongside these, it teaches the mathematics and computer simulation techniques needed to express the models quantitatively. For many life science students this may be their first encounter with explicit, integrated biomodeling. The author has selectively filtered, reorganized and combined the subject into twelve chapters, distilling a field that is largely qualitative at its core. Models rely mainly on simple differential equations and algebra, always connected to the underlying biology, and higher mathematics and complex analytical solutions are avoided.

Models are solved and analyzed through simulation in Simulink, a graphical interface and MATLAB toolbox that resembles control systems block diagramming, rather than by writing code, so students work directly with the system model. Each chapter opens with a list of learning goals that guide study beforehand and allow learning to be checked afterward. Definitions and clear explanations of core terms appear throughout, and each chapter closes with exercises that reinforce the material.

Instructors who adopt the book for a college course can obtain from the author a solutions manual for the chapter exercises, lecture slides, and lab assignments with solutions. This color edition includes full color illustrations.