An informal workshop on the interface of ecology – neuroscience – cell biology – gene regulation
Many biological systems are composed of a very large number of interacting elements coupled to their environment. These are adaptive dynamical systems, whose dynamic rules and parameters generally evolve over time.
While this realisation has been made in several fields of theoretical biology, it seems that each field has focused on a particular viewpoint of these systems. We believe the time is ripe for an exchange of ideas between fields within this general framework.
A few examples can illustrate our intentions. There are, of course, exceptions (whose representatives will hopefully attend the meeting), but these examples are representative of large trends.
- Neural network models largely neglect heterogeneity of the individual elements and their interactions. A typical model will consider a population of identical neurons connected in a statistically homogeneous manner.
- In ecology the effects of fluctuating conditions and history-dependence have received less attention.
- In cell biology, networks are mostly considered fixed and isolated, with less emphasis on their interaction with the environment.
We propose an informal meeting bringing together researchers from various disciplines interested in such an exchange of ideas. The format will be of a few talks with ample time for discussion.
Organizing committee
Omri Barak, Naama Brenner, Guy Bunin
Support & acknowledgements
The organizers wish to acknowledge the generous support of the Lorry Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Science and Engineering, faculty of Medicine , Dept. of Physics and Dept. of Chemical Engineering at the Technion.
Thank you, Dr. Roman Dvorkin , a former lab PhD. student, for the beautiful pictures presented in this website.