After studying anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, pathology and clinical veterinary medicine, Dr. Fleming began preparing for a systems biology Ph.D. by studying computer science and mathematics. His Ph.D. concerned the analysis of transcriptomic data in E. coli using empirical mode decomposition, and laterly, a mathematical exploration of the physico-chemical basis of constraint-based modeling. Dr. Fleming leads the Systems Biochemistry Group, an interdiscipinary research group of mathematical, computational and experimental biologists. The fundamental interest is to develop scalable mathematical and numerical analysis techniques that increase the predictive fidelity of biomolecular network models, by incorporating physico-chemical constraints, motivated by optimality principles. Their applied interest is in the aetiopathogenesis and amelioration of Parkinson’s disease. Model predictions are used for optimal experimental design and compared with quantitative experimental data, including that obtained from their microfluidic cell cultures of dopaminergic neurons, derived from normal and Parkinsonian human subjects using stem cell biology techniques.

Publications