Multi scale modeling of biochemical dynamics in structured media

Microbial food safety is an important societal issue. Predictive microbiology generates mathematical models to describe microbial behavior in food by combining microbial knowledge and mathematical techniques. Current macroscopic models enable an accurate description for liquid (homogeneous) systems, but often fail when applied to real food due to their solid(like) character. In these cases, colony formation typically arises, inducing spatial heterogeneity (due to, e.g., diffusion limitations) and biological heterogeneity (due to, e.g., the occurrence of a dead subpopulation).

The aim is to build a new generation of mechanistically inspired macroscopic models. To this end, models at multiple scales are exploited: Individual-based Models (IbMs) at the micro-scale to describe the outgrowth of a cell into a colony, Population Balance Models (PBMs) at the meso-scale to yield the colony distribution and Mass Balance Models (MBMs) at the macro-scale to predict the total cell number. Hence, multi-scale experimental information is required at the cell, colony and population level as well as an appropriate condensing of insights across the scales. In summary, the combination of advanced multi-scale modeling and experimental techniques will lead to a new generation of predictive models, which are applicable where current models fail.