On Sept. 14, 2023, Northwestern University announced it had been awarded $50 million over five years from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Simons Foundation to establish the National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology (NITMB), to be based in downtown Chicago. The institute will be the first of its kind in the U.S.

Mathematics has the potential to distill biology’s complexity and predict future phenomena. NITMB researchers from across disciplines will develop and use math to investigate some of the most important fundamental questions in the life sciences. And the institute offers bidirectional opportunities: Discoveries in biology also will motivate new developments in mathematics.

The University of Chicago (UChicago) is Northwestern’s key partner in this initiative. Together, the two universities will create a nationwide collaborative research community that will generate new mathematical results and uncover the “rules of life” through theories, data-informed mathematical models, and computational and statistical tools. The institute also will foster international collaborations at the interface of the mathematical and biological sciences, helping establish a vibrant worldwide research network for decades to come.