Associate Professor
Pascal Buenzli
Faculty of Science,
School of Mathematical Sciences
Biography
Dr Pascal Buenzli is an Associate Professor in Mathematical Biology at the School of Mathematical Sciences at QUT, and a former ARC DECRA Fellow 2013–2017. Academic experience- 2024–: Associate Professor in Mathematical Biology, School of Mathematical Sciences, QUT
- 2020–2024: Senior Lecturer in Mathematical Biology, School of Mathematical Sciences, QUT
- 2017–2020: Lecturer in Mathematical Biology, School of Mathematical Sciences, QUT
- 2013–2017: ARC DECRA Fellow
- 2013–2017: Lecturer, School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University
- 2009–2013: Research Assistant Professor, Engineering Computational Biology Group, The University of Western Australia
- 2007–2008: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Theoretical Physics, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- PhD in Theoretical Physics (with distinction), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
- MSc/Dipl. Phys. ETH, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETHZ)
Personal details
Positions
- Associate Professor
Faculty of Science,
School of Mathematical Sciences
Research field
Applied mathematics, Numerical and computational mathematics
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2020
Qualifications
- PhD (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne)
- MSc (Dipl. Phys. ETH) (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich))
Teaching
Undergraduate Units
- MZB125 Introductory Engineering Mathematics (Sem 1; 2017 − present)
- MZB125 Introductory Engineering Mathematics - Lecture notes (last updated Sem 1, 2022)
- Introduction to programming in MATLAB - Lecture notes (last updated 2021)
- MXB202 Advanced Calculus (Sem 2; 2020 − present)
Experience
Research Interests
See the Mathematics in Medicine group webpage (Tissue growth and Biomedical engineering) for more details.
- mathematical biology
- mechanobiology
- biological physics
- complex systems
- stochastic processes
- statistical mechanics and fluctuation-induced phenomena
Research Statement My research is in mathematical modelling of biological tissue growth and remodelling. Such biological systems are subjected to mechanistic processes related to geometric constraints, mechanics, and mass balance that are well adapted to be captured by mathematical models. It is essential that we understand quantitatively the involvement of these mechanistic processes in observed experimental data to be able to interpret these data correctly. By factoring out these mechanistic processes, we gain access to less mechanistic, cell behavioural quantities that are highly relevant to biologists.
Publications
- Alias, M. & Buenzli, P. (2017). Modeling the effect of curvature on the collective behavior of cells growing new tissue. Biophysical Journal, 112(1), 193–204. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106749
- Lerebours, C., Buenzli, P., Scheiner, S. & Pivonka, P. (2016). A multiscale mechanobiological model of bone remodelling predicts site-specific bone loss in the femur during osteoporosis and mechanical disuse. Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology, 15(1), 43–67. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106508
- Buenzli, P., (2016). Governing equations of tissue modelling and remodelling: A unified generalised description of surface and bulk balance. PLoS One, 11(4), 1–25. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106751
- Lerebours, C. & Buenzli, P. (2016). Towards a cell-based mechanostat theory of bone: the need to account for osteocyte desensitisation and osteocyte replacement. Journal of Biomechanics, 49(13), 2600–2606. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106750
- Buenzli, P., (2015). Osteocytes as a record of bone formation dynamics: A mathematical model of osteocyte generation in bone matrix. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 364, 418–427. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106755
- Buenzli, P. & Sims, N. (2015). Quantifying the osteocyte network in the human skeleton. Bone, 75, 144–150. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106753
- Buenzli, P., Pivonka, P. & Smith, D. (2014). Bone refilling in cortical basic multicellular units: insights into tetracycline double labelling from a computational model. Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology, 13(1), 185–203. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106756
- Buenzli, P., Pivonka, P. & Smith, D. (2011). Spatio-temporal structure of cell distribution in cortical Bone Multicellular Units: A mathematical model. Bone, 48(4), 918–926. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106514
- Buenzli, P. & Martin, P. (2008). Microscopic theory of the Casimir force at thermal equilibrium: Large-separation asymptotics. Physical Review E, 77(1), 1–15. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106764
- Buenzli, P. & Soto, R. (2008). Violation of the action-reaction principle and self-forces induced by nonequilibrium fluctuations. Physical Review E, 78(2), 1–4. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/106763
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Pascal, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Supervision
Current supervisions
- Modelling osteocyte control networks in bone mechanobiology
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Vivien Challis
Supervision topics
- Curvature dependence of reaction-diffusion wave front speed with nonlinear diffusion.
- Optimising bone shape with memory networks
- Equation learning for partial differential equation models of stochastic random walk models
- Creation of fibrous tissue at moving interfaces
- Emergence of curvature-dependent growth in mathematical models of tissue invasion
The supervisions listed above are only a selection.