The university research strategy is focussed around the analysis of complex systems using predictive modelling and visualisation. Many of the research projects within the School of Contemporary Sciences cluster around these linked themes.
In particular, the studies on soil structure and function taking place in SIMBIOS (Scottish Informatics, Mathematics, Biology and Statistics Centre), development of sustainable city environments in ACE (Abertay Centre for the Environment), and a novel methodology for studying cell processes in cancer cells being developed by our Systems Pathology Group are all closely associated with the modelling/visualisation agenda.
So our soil scientists are modelling how fungi colonise soil, how the interconnectedness of pore spaces in soil affects transport on water and nutrients and how best to exploit complex instrumentation such as CT scanners to understand soil structures – all this in an attempt to better understand how micro scale processes in soil influence processes at the macro and landscape scale.
In the Abertay Centre for the Environment we are using modelling and visualisation to help the development and understanding of sustainability issues in cities and have produced a 3D virtual interactive computer model of the central waterfront area of Dundee. This model allows planners to inform the public of potential developments and the public to view different types of development and to make changes to the potential cityscape and evaluate the results.
Finally, our Systems Pathology team has developed a predictive mathematical model of all the biochemical processes of cell division and have used it to identify new control proteins and, potentially, new anti-cancer drug targets. In addition the model will allow the early evaluation of multi-drug therapies for various cancers.
As well as these areas, Contemporary Sciences also has active research groups in the food, forensics and in genetics. In the food area we are developing new products from the waste of the food industry (for example bio fuels), assisting companies in designing and marketing new health food products from a range of different sub-sector sources and investigating aspects of food choice amongst particular groups of society.
Our work in forensics is particularly involved in fingerprint analysis and the evaluation of evidence (a topic which links back to predictive modelling and visualisation). In the genetics area we are focussed on the ethical and physiological implications of human genetic polymorphisms.
Each of our areas of research expertise is closely linked in to our undergraduate and graduate degree programmes and many of our projects are being developed in conjunction with potential end users. Though a proportion of our work can be considered ‘blue sky’, all of it is developed with application in mind whether it be establishing how soils will react to, or modify, climate change, how to develop bio fuels which do not reduce food production but do start to show how we may be able to overcome issues to do with burning of fossil fuels, or how the innate resistance of cancer cells to long term drug treatment could be overcome by multi-drug therapy.
Please contact us directly or through the institutes to share in our cutting-edge scientific work:
