Leibniz MMS Days 2019 - Abstract
Westermark, Pål
Circadian rhythms are the 24-hour rhythms in behavior and physiology in animals and plant, that persist even if the organism is held in constant conditions without any cues that tell the time (e.g., light). These rhythms have a cellular origin in the form of a genetic oscillator. The oscillator drives rhythmic expression of typically thousands of genes: the clock output. We will give an overview of modern research on the clock output, with an emphasis of statistical methods for detecting rhythms in gene expression, and of mathematical modeling as a tool to gain an understanding of how rhythms are orchestrated and what effects on cell physiology they may have. Our latest research, which addresses the important negative problem of detecting arrhythmicity, is also for the first time presented.