Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science at Kyushu University doubled its number of laboratories from the previous five to ten around 1970. After four laboratories focusing on molecular life sciences, "Mathematical Biology" laboratory was established. The faculty members were Professor Hirotsugu Matsuda and Assistant Professor Kazunari Ishii in the statistical mechanics theory of random systems, Associate Professor Takashi Miyata in quantum biology of DNA, and Assistant Professor Mitiko Go in the statistical physics of proteins. They were all physicists previously. Research was actively pursued on molecular evolution, mathematical theory of population genetics, and data analysis of DNAs and proteins.
After Ishii moved out, Yoh Iwasa succeeded him. Iwasa had worked on various mathematical models in ecology and animal behavior. After Go and Miyata departed, Akira Sasaki, who had been focusing on pathogen-host coevolution and genetic recombination rate evolution, was hired as an assistant professor. Many members from this lab advanced to become core researchers in various universities and research institutes throughout Japan, specializing in theoretical research and data analysis in molecular evolution. The weekly Tuesday seminar in the Mathematical Biology laboratory had been called "ME seminar," where "ME" stands for molecular evolution. The same name has been retained after the staff turnover and the shift in research fields, and the meaning of the name has evolved to include mathematical ecology, mathematical economics, molecular ecology, and so on.
After Professor Hirotsugu Matsuda retired in 1992, Iwasa assumed the position of professor and took charge of the Laboratory. Hiroyuki Matsuda, who specialized in mathematical ecology and fishery resource analysis, became an associate professor, and Hirohiko Takeda, who had been working on developmental biology, became an assistant professor. Members of the laboratory continued to analyze life history and sexual expression based on dynamic optimization and game theory, spatial ecology, along with developing quantitative evolutionary dynamics. They also actively conducted research on the evolution of mate choice, and the evolution of altruistic behavior. Furthermore, they developed theoretical studies on the effects of adaptive evolution of component species in a multi-species interacting system, as well as theories of biological resource management and conservation biology. Later, Hiroyuki Matsuda moved on, and Atsushi Mochizuki, a theoretician specializing in developmental biology and morphogenesis, was appointed as an assistant professor.
In the 2000s, Mochizuki moved on and Yoshihiro Morishita arrived as an assistant professor a few years later. He developed mathematical modeling to track morphological changes during development and developmental design robust to noise, with the focus on limb bud formation in chicks. The laboratory members developed the stochastic process of carcinogenesis, the evolution of cooperation by indirect reciprocity, and coevolution of multiple species. Sasaki and Morishita moved out in 2007 and 2010, respectively. In 2011, Shingo Iwami was appointed as an associate professor, who had been working on the analysis of viral dynamics in the body in collaboration with many experimental virology groups. After that, Joung-Hun Lee, who had been working on the coupled dynamics of human behavioral selection and ecosystem change on topics such as illegal logging of tropical forests and long-distance migration of nomads, and Hiroshi Haeno, who had been working on cancer modeling, both stayed in the lab as assistant professors.
Iwasa retired in 2018, and Akiko Satake assumed the position of professor and took charge of the Mathematical Biology laboratory. Her research interests include the accumulation process of somatic mutations, comprehensive analysis and modeling of gene expression dynamics, modeling and prediction of plant phenology, and the relationship between ecosystems and global environmental change, combining micro- and macro-approaches. Iwami moved on, and was replaced by Associate Professor Eriko Sasaki, an expert in genome analysis, and Assistant Professor Koji Noshita, who has been pursuing phenotyping to analyze the 3D shape of biological structures using mathematical modeling and machine learning. The current direction of the Mathematical Biology Laboratory at Kyushu University emphasizes the integration of mathematical model-based analysis and data-driven analysis.
Written by Yoh Iwasa and Akiko Satake September 15, 2023