An invitation to stochastic mathematical biology

Mathematical biology is unusual as a discipline in being
defined by its application area, rather than by the type of
mathematics involved. We are now in the era of mass data
gathering and cheap computation, revealing the messy
details of biological systems with unprecedented clarity.
Mathematical biologists are increasingly required to confront the essential randomness and uncertainty of the natural world; a challenge that brings with it the opportunities to ask and answer new questions, sometimes providing surprisingly simple explanations for complex natural
phenomena. In this article we survey the growing field of
stochastic mathematical biology, revealing the surprising
explanatory power of randomness in biology, and highlighting developments and challenges across a spectrum
of mathematical areas.