TITLE: Mathematical formula for biological phenomena?
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: Math is strongly intervened with Physics and Chemistry: it's used for an assortment of calculations and experiments. However, I find that Biology (at least elementary Biology) is severely lacking in mathematical models. Do mathematical models of biological phenomena (i.e. cell reproduction, anatomical systems etc.) exist? Are they simply too complicated and inapplicable to be taught in general classes, or have we just not been able to attribute mathematical models to these phenomena?

REPLY [9 votes]: Mathematical biology is a very active field. As a starting point, you might look at the Wikipedia article on Mathematical and theoretical biology. The Society for Mathematical Biology publishes the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology. There are also a Journal of Mathematical Biology and the open access Journal of Mathematical Neuroscience, both published by Springer. In the August 1010 Notices of the AMS there’s a seven-page essay on What Is Mathematical Biology and How Useful Is It? by Avner Friedman. 
It’s true that the subject has only relatively recently percolated into undergraduate curricula, though I remember teaching some very elementary modeling of epidemics back in the 70s. For one thing, modern computing has made parts of it considerably more accessible than they used to be. But it’s getting there. Links on this Math Archives page show that there are courses in aspects of the subject at the undergraduate as well as the graduate level. Indeed, the Society for Mathematical Biology lists several schools offering undergraduate majors in some sort of mathematical biology. The list isn’t complete, either: the University of Houston also offers such a major, as does the University of Pittsburgh, and McGill offers a joint major in biology and mathematics. A Biologist's Guide to Mathematical Modeling in Ecology and Evolution, by Sarah P. Otto and Troy Day, is expressly designed to make the techniques of mathematical modeling available to students and biologists who don’t already have more mathematical background than first-year calculus.
And of course biostatistics has become an indespensable part of biology and medicine and is increasingly showing up in undergraduate statistics programs.