Assistant Professor of Mathematics Jose Ceniceros recently presented “Quandle coloring of topological circuits” as an invited lecture at the Circuit Topology 2022 symposium. The event took place at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and was organized by the Mashaghi Lab, part of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research.
The talk was based on two papers Ceniceros co-authored – “Coloring Invariant for Topological Circuits in Folded Linear Chains” and “Enhancement of the coloring invariant for folded molecular chains” – that were published last year.
He said that circuit topology is a mathematical approach that categorizes the arrangement of contacts within a folded linear chain, such as a protein molecule or the genome. These linear biomolecular chains often fold into complex 3D architectures with critical entanglements and local/global structural symmetries stabilized by the formation of intrachain contacts.
In his talk, Ceniceros discussed how he and his fellow researchers adapted and applied the algebraic structure of quandles to classify and distinguish chain topologies within the framework of circuit topology.
Ceniceros noted that Erica Flapan K’77 presented on “Tile Circuit Topology” at the symposium.
