Section: Research Program

Delay differential equations

The use of age structure in PDE often leads to a reduction (by integration over the age variable) to delay differential equations. Delay differential equations are particularly useful for situations where the processes are controlled through feedback loops acting after a certain time. For example, in the evolution of cell populations the transmission of control signals can be related to some processes as division, differentiation, maturation, apoptosis, etc. Delay differential equations offer good tools to study the behavior of the systems. Our main investigation will be the effect of perturbations of the parameters, as cell cycle duration, apoptosis, differentiation, self-renewal, etc., on the behavior of the system, in relation for instance with some pathological situations. The mathematical analysis of delay differential equations is often complicated and needs the development of new criteria to be performed.