Our work on the Method of Moments
Estimating the time-dependent behavior of biochemical reaction systems is challenging: many processes are highly stochastic and modeling only the average number of molecules leads to results of varying quality.
The Method of Moments defines a set of ordinary differential equations that describe not only the average number of system molecules but also all higher-order statistical moments of this quantity like its variance and skewness.
Unfortunately, each statistical moment of a given order depends on moments of higher order, thereby creating an infinite hierarchy of dependencies. In order to predict a given system's behavior, one, therefore, needs to close the system.
The figure below presents a schematic representation of our newly developed Quasi-Entropy Closure, which aims to close this infinite hierarchy in a meaningful manner.
Besides this new closure technique, we recently showed some limitations of the Method of Moments especially in systems that are wildly stocastic while still arising from very simple reaction kinetics.
Vincent Wagner
Research Assistant