Circadian Rhythms Research

I am a member of the Five Colleges Biological Rhythms Group ("Clocks Club"), working with Eric Bittman (Biology, UMass-Amherst), Mary Harrington (Psychology, Smith College), C. V. Hollot (ECE, UMass-Amherst), and Hava Siegelmann (Computer Science, UMass-Amherst).

If you are an undergraduate interested in getting involved in research involving mathematics and biology, then please contact me! Several students have worked with me on projects analyzing experimental data on jet lag in mice and on modeling the circadian clock in the brain, including one project that resulted in a published article. No biology background is necessary.

Current topics of interest

• Mathematical modeling of transcriptional-translational feedback loops of clock genes, with special attention to the role of post-translational processes
• Modeling of the circadian system in mammals, with particular attention to the possible desynchrony resulting from phase shifts (jet lag)
• Exploring the spatial and temporal organization of the mouse SCN (the circadian clock in the brain)
• Modeling the light response mechanisms that allow the SCN to entrain to a light-dark cycle

Publications

Alec J. Davidson, Oscar Castonon-Cervantes, T. Leise, Penny Molyneux, and Mary Harrington, Visualizing jet lag in the mouse suprachiasmatic nucleus and peripheral circadian timing system, accepted by the European Journal of Neuroscience.

Eric Bittman and T. Leise, Multi-oscillatory circadian systems. In: Binder, M.D., Hirokawa, N., Windhorst, U. (editors), Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. Springer, Berlin (in press).

T. Leise and Emily Moin (Amherst '09), A mathematical model of the Drosophila circadian clock with emphasis on post-translational mechanisms, Journal of Theoretical Biology 28 (2007), 48-63.

T. Leise and Hava Siegelmann, Dynamics of a multistage circadian system, Journal of Biological Rhythms 21:4 (2006), 314-323.

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