Introduction to MATLAB® for Biologists

Cerian R. Webb: Cerian Webb graduated with a degree in pure Mathematics from the University of York, followed by an MSc in Mathematical Biology from the University of Dundee. She completed her PhD at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, modelling crop growth and disease dynamics. Cerian lectures on undergraduate courses in Mathematical Biology at the University of Cambridge and is a lecturer on the Wellcome Genome Campus Advanced Course 'Mathematical Models for Infectious Disease Dynamics'. She regularly delivers a course on MATLAB for biologists through the University of Cambridge School of Biological Sciences Bioinformatics Training Facility. Cerian is currently a post-doctoral research associate in the Epidemiology and Modelling Group, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge and is the Associate Lecturer in Mathematical Biology at Newnham College, Cambridge. Mirela Domijan: Mirela Domijan completed her undergraduate and MPhil studies in Mathematics at the University of Waikato, her PhD at the University of Warwick and she held postdoctoral posts at Warwick and at the University of Cambridge. At present she is a lecturer in Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Liverpool. She has lectured courses in Mathematical Biology and Systems Biology and, during her time at the University of Cambridge, she taught MATLAB at the university’s School of Biological Sciences Bioinformatics Training Facility. Her research focuses on application of mathematics to plant biology.

• Introduction: What is Matlab and what can it be used for.- Overview of Interface.- Toolboxes.- The basics using the command line: Element by element versus matrix multiplication.- Multiplying and dividing arrays of data.- Example 1: Next generation matrix models.- Creating and using script files: Debugging scripts.- Using the live editor.- Accessing help.- Exploring Matlab’s in-built functions.- Creating graphs and plots: Example 1: Introduction to the image processing toolbox.- Example 2: Plotting ellipses, hyperbola and parabola (conic sections).- Anonymous functions.- Creating separate function files: Example 1: solving a differential equation using ode45 using biological examples.- Importing and exporting data: Example 1: reading spreadsheets using the command line and an application of linear algebra to statistical analysis of qpcr data.- Matlab as a programming language: Introduction to using loops in your scripts.- For loops.- While loops.-  Combining loops and conditional statements.