Science for Education

Built in a cell synthetic gene regulatory elements may function rather independently on the original natural system. Experimental and theoretical studies of small synthetic networks allow for a better understanding of fundamental dynamical mechanisms of gene regulation. This paper gives an introduction to the modern mathematical approaches and methods in this field, primarily in the framework of nonlinear dynamics.

This article is an extended summary of a lecture given to undergraduate and postgraduate students of Saratov State University’s Faculty of Nonlinear Processes at the School-cum-Conference «Nonlinear Days for the Young in Saratov – 2012».

These lectures were delivered to the high school students at the School – seminar «Nonlinear Days for Youth in Saratov – 2012» in October 2012. They present the two ways of historical investigation of symmetry. The first way is self-similarity, i.e. invariance at dimension scale changing. In a more general way the term «scaling» is used, meaning the existence of power-law correlation between some variable and variables x1, ...xn: y = Axα1...xαn1 (self-similarity) appearing in various fields of science and culture. G.I. Barenblatt indicates that scaling laws never appear by accident.