ODSL Forum: Towards Applying Simulation Based Inference to DNA/RNA Polymerization Reactions

by Ludwig Burger (TUM)

Friday 12 May 2023, 15:15 → 16:15 Europe/Berlin

Basement Seminar Room (Origins Building)

Abstract: Characterizing emergent properties of polymerization reactions in pools of information-carrying polymers is fundamental to understand how self-sustaining living systems might have emerged from prebiotic chemistry. Even though considerable progress has been made in theory and experiment, mapping between experiment and theory remains challenging due to the high number of unknown parameters and relatively sparse data. In the talk, I will discuss how RNA polymerization reactions can be simulated using a Gillespie-type algorithm, and how the results obtained in this simulation framework can be compared to experimental data. At the current stage, matching simulation and experiment requires changing the parameters manually and running the simulation multiple times, until good agreement is reached. We hope to discuss ideas, how data science methods might help to accelerate the fitting procedure.