This is the first book in a new, highly exciting, growing area of applied mathematics, with applications to modern cell biology. The level is very accessible to a wide range of readers from the physical sciences to biology and the life sciences. The book is lucidly written and has an extensive, scholarly researched bibliography which will certainly be useful to anyone who wants to go deeper into the subject. (Hong Qian, SIAM Review, Vol. 57 (3), September, 2015)