Maria-Veronica Ciocanel

My research is in mathematical biology, and I am particularly interested in tackling questions about protein transport and organization in cells using mathematical and computational tools. Understanding how proteins move and organize inside cells is a fundamental question in cell and developmental biology, with implications to how cells function in a healthy way and how organisms properly develop.

I use mathematical modeling, analysis, and simulation to address questions about molecular-motor driven transport and protein filament organization. I build and use techniques from dynamical systems and partial differential equations, stochastic processes, and data analysis. I collaborate with experimental researchers on problems related to messenger RNA transport in developing oocytes and neuronal cells, actin-myosin protein interactions, and organization of microtubule filaments in neuronal dendrites. This leads to interesting questions about building stochastic and continuous models for these processes, about parameter estimation and identifiability based on limited experimental data, and about appropriate measures for analyzing complex simulated and experimental datasets.

Up-to-date information about my research can be found here: https://services.math.duke.edu/~ciocanel/.