Applied Math Seminar: Nicolette Meshkat (Santa Clara University)

When:
October 23, 2019 @ 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
2019-10-23T15:30:00-10:00
2019-10-23T16:30:00-10:00
Where:
Keller 402

Title: Structural Identifiability of Biological Models

Abstract: Parameter identifiability analysis addresses the problem of which unknown parameters of a model can be determined from given input/output data. If all of the parameters of a model can be determined from data, the parameters and the model are called identifiable. However, if some subset of the parameters can not be determined from data, the model is called unidentifiable. We examine this problem for the case of perfect input/output data, i.e. absent of any experimental noise. This is called the structural identifiability problem. We show that, even in the ideal case of perfect input/output data, many biological models are structurally unidentifiable, meaning some subset of the parameters can take on an infinite number of values, yet yield the same input/output data. In this case, one attempts to reparametrize the model in terms of new parameters that can be determined from data. In this talk, we discuss the problem of finding an identifiable reparametrization and give necessary and sufficient conditions for a certain class of linear compartmental models to have an identifiable reparametrization. We also discuss finding classes of identifiable models and finding identifiable submodels of identifiable models. Our work uses graph theory and tools from computational algebra. This is joint work with Elizabeth Gross and Anne Shiu.