Joanna Tyrcha: Stochastic Activation in a Genetic Switch

Abstract: Biological networks generically exhibit discontinuous transitions between different states, characterised by different gene expression patterns. Sometimes these transitions can be stochastic, driven by random fluctuations of molecular concentrations. In this work, we analyse such transitions in a minimal model of a self-regulating gene. We employ generalisations of theoretical treatments of simpler problems to calculate the activation rate in the limit where the transitions are rare.

Joint work with John Hertz and Alvaro Correales