Brian Goodwin

Brian Goodwin died in hospital in 2009, after surgery resulting from a fall from his bicycle. Goodwin is survived by his third wife, Christel, and his daughter, Lynn.

These equations describe the spatiotemporal dynamics of the displacement from the reference state and the calcium concentration, respectively. Here x and t are the space and time coordinates, respectively. These equations can be applied to many different scenarios and the different functions P(x) introduce the specific mechanical properties of the medium. These equations can generate a rich variety of static and dynamic patterns, from complex geometrical motifs to oscillations and chaos (Briere 1994).

It has been shown (Trainor & Goodwin, 1986) that, in a range of parameter values, instabilities may occur and develop in this system, leading to intracellular patterns of strain and calcium concentration. The equations read, in their general form:

By considering the mechanochemical behaviour of the cortical cytoplasm (or cytogel) of plant cells, a viscoelastic material mainly composed of actin microfilaments and reinforced by a microtubules network, Goodwin & Trainor (1985) showed how to couple calcium and the mechanical properties of the cytoplasm. The cytogel is treated as a continuous viscoelastic medium in which calcium ions can diffuse and interact with the cytoskeleton. The model consists in two non-linear partial differential equations which describe the evolution of the mechanical strain field and of the calcium distribution in the cytogel.

Brian Carey Goodwin (25 March 1931 – 15 July 2009) (St Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, Canada - Torbay, Devon, UK) was a Canadian mathematician and biologist, a Professor Emeritus at the Open University and a founder of theoretical biology and biomathematics. He introduced the use of complex systems and generative models in developmental biology. He suggested that a reductionist view of nature fails to explain complex features, controversially proposing the structuralist theory that morphogenetic fields might substitute for natural selection in driving evolution. He was also a visible member of the Third Culture movement.

Brian Goodwin was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1931. He studied biology at McGill University and then emigrated to the UK, under a Rhodes Scholarship for studying mathematics at Oxford. He got his PhD at the University of Edinburgh presenting the thesis "Studies in the general theory of development and evolution" under the supervision of Conrad Hal Waddington. He then moved to Sussex University until 1983 when he became a full professor at the Open University in Milton Keynes until retirement in 1992. He became a major figure in the early development of mathematical biology, along with other researchers. He was one of the attendants to the famous meetings that took place between 1965 and 1968 in Villa Serbelloni, hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation, under the topic "Towards a theoretical Biology". The workshop involved, among other key scientists, Conrad Waddington, Jack Cowan, Michael Conrad, Jim Burns, Christopher Zeeman, Richard Lewontin, Robert Rosen, Stuart Kauffman, John Maynard Smith, René Thom and Lewis Wolpert. As a result of the conference talks and discussions, a four-volume proceedings of the event came out, becoming at the time a major reference in the area.