Summary

No one is surprised when a mathematician talks about General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics. But say that you work on the applications of mathematics to Biology and Medicine and people tend to ask ``What? How do Mathematics and Biology interact?'' I want to tell them that this field is one of the most exciting areas of modern Applied Mathematics. Today, mathematics helps to answer important questions like:

• ``What is the feedback mechanism that ensures that a wound to the skin heals to the right level?''
• ``Why does a cancer grow so fast?''
• ``Why do white blood cells pack into joints affected by rheumatoid arthritis?''
• ``How does an embryo implant in the uterus?''

Mathematics provides a quantitative framework to discuss, in detail, the interaction between all the component parts of these complex biological systems, as well as to test out various interventions. These are problems on which Australian mathematicians are currently working.

At a recent meeting, a leader in fisheries research said ``We used to be `gills and guts' biologists but now we realise that, in order to answer the critical questions about stock-assessment and fishery-management, we also need mathematical modelling and statistics''. This is just another example of how mathematics is needed to provide a framework to discuss the impact of various options, like a periodic closing of a fishery.

New approaches to the treatment of cancer, persistent leg ulcers, arthritis, infertility or the management of fisheries, may owe a lot to the `hidden' contribution of the mathematical modeller.