Jan. 6 -- March 29,  2003

ORGANIZERS: D.Kuchnir Fygenson (UCSB), A. Ruckenstein (Rutgers), B.Shraiman (Bell Labs), L.Wolpert (UCL)
 

The program will address the avenues of quantitative modeling, experimentation and analysis focused on the enzymatic and genetic regulatory networks involved in signal transduction and control of gene expression. It will explore a diverse set of example systems and expose the participants (especially ones with non-biology background) to a broad spectrum of problems/systems so as to stimulate further research and germinate interdisciplinary collaborations.  The program will also aim to familiarize biologists, through interaction with physical scientists, with various quantitative tools of modern physics and mathematics which could be usefully applied in biological context. One of the primary goals of the program is to identify issues and model systems where quantitative modeling and bio-informatic approaches would currently be most fruitful. The program will seek balance between general questions (e.g. "insight into the general design principles underlying the organization of regulatory networks responsible for the apparent ‘robustness’ and ‘evolvability’of living matter and the diversity of life forms") and factual knowledge of specific systems and experimental and theoretical/computational methods.

Thematic organization of the program will be supported by several mini-workshops which will gather, in addition to the long term participants, groups (6-10) of invited experts.

List of Mini-workshops:
1) Modules and Evolvability, Jan.12-17, Andrew Murray (Harvard) coordinator,
2) Bacterial regulation, Jan. 22-24, Mark Goulian (Penn) coordinator
3) Genetic networks in development, Feb. 10-14 , Sean Carroll (Wisc) and Lewis Wolpert (UCL) coordinators
4) Bio-informatic approach to genetic networks, Feb. 24- Feb.28, Hao Li (UCSF) coordinator
5) Eukaryotic Chemotaxis, March 12-14, Herbert Levine (UCSD) coordinator
*Shortcourse: Robustness Analysis Tools with Applications to Biological and Physical Sciences, March 20-21
                               Bassam Bamieh (UCSB) and John Doyle (Caltech) coordinators
6) Dynamics, adaptation and fluctuations in bio-networks, March 24-27, Anirvan Sengupta (Bell Labs), coordinator.