Expertise

 

• Mathematical modeling /computer simulation of complex biomedical systems

• Mathematical modeling of aging in individuals and populations

• Advances data analysis/ data mining

 

Background

 

I am an applied mathematician born and educated in Russia (M Electrical Engineering, and PhD in Theoretical Mechanics/Applied Mathematics,

St-Petersburg 1973), joined the Medical School at Dalhousie in 2002. I am a Fellow of the American Gerontological Society (GSA), have also received several distinctions,including a prestigious Dalhousie University Research Professorship (2011), given only to a limited number of individuals. I am a three time

recipient of Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CHIR) operating grants as Principal Investigator of a program for “Mathematical modeling of fitness and

frailty in relation to biological age in individuals and populations” ($392,000, 2011-2014). 

 

I have published over 150 peer reviewed papers (most of them in last 10 years, some highly cited), and have been a peer reviewer for as many as 30 journals (including Mech Ageing Dev, J Gerontol, J Theor Biol, Front in Genet, Phys Life Rev, Exp gerontol, Biogerontology), and have delivered many presentations at

the national and international scientific meetings. I serve as an Associate Editor for Science Reports, Frontiers in Public Health (Epidemiology), BMC Geriatrics, and Current Gerontology and Geriatrics Research (CGGR). I am a member of the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Reviewers College (2017-2020).

 

As part of a longstanding collaboration with Professor Kenneth Rockwood (Department of Medicine at Dalhousie University), we developed an integrated

measure of human health known as the Frailty Index (FI, Mitntiski et al., 2001), which now has numerous applications in a variety of areas, including

epidemiology, clinical medicine, biology, and most recently even in macro-economics.  

 

First suggested as an empirical means of quantifying individual aging rates (a proxy measure of aging, Mitnitski et al., The ScientificWorld 2001) and as an

indicator of frailty, this index allows understanding of the complex stochastic processes of the interactions between the organism and its environment

(Mitnitski et al., Biogerontology 2013). Most importantly, we demonstrated that age related changes in the time of recovery after stresses (of various nature) explain the major patterns of health related deficits accumulation with aging.  As a robust health indicator, FI can be used for the evaluation of the biological age in individuals (Mitniski and Rockwood, J Gerontol Biol Scie 2013; Mitnitski et al. J Gerontol Biol Sci 2016). 

 

The statistical mechanics of these processes is currently being developed in a large-scale computer model, in collaboration with Prof. Andrew Rutenberg

(Department of Physics at Dalhousie University). See our recent publications: Taneja et al. Phys Rev E. 2016 Feb;93(2-1):022309. Farrell et al. Phys Rev E. 2016 Nov;94(5-1):052409. Mitnitski et al. Biogerontology. 2017 Mar 2. doi: 10.1007/s10522-017-9684-x.

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