Many cellular processes can in the end be understood in terms of decisions; should a damaged cell decide to repair or to die? should a virus stay as a lysogen or rather cause host lysis? should a bacteria differentiate or not into a spore state when nutrients become limiting? Recent research is starting to understand these type of decisions by applying quantitative measurements and mathematical modeling. Notably, in many of these scenarios cellular 'strategies' that combined biological noise and nonlinearities in response are starting to be unravelled.
On 24 January 2014, the CNB Systems Biology Programme is bringing a number of experts on these very topics next week as part of its annual colloquium, with talks including aspects of decision making in mammalian cells, plants, microbes, etc. (see programme), so we expect that this meeting could be of interest for a wide range of life sciences scientists. You are all most welcome to attend.
PROGRAMME
Morning Session I (Chairman: Víctor de Lorenzo)
09:45 Welcome and General Information
10:00 - WILFRIED WEBER, University of Freiburg, Germany. Optical Control of Mammalian Cells
10:30 - ALEX DE MENDOZA, EB UPF-CSIC, Spain. Comparative genomics at the origins of multicellularity: transcription factors and signaling systems
11:00 - FRANCISCO ROMERO-CAMPERO, University of Seville, Spain. Plant development evolution based on gene co-expression networks
11:30 Coffee Break
Morning Session II (Chairman: Juan F Poyatos)
12:00 - PETER SWAIN, University of Edinburgh, UK. Microbial decision-making: phosphorylations and mating in yeast
12:30 - THIERRY EMONET, Yale University, USA. Functional trade-offs and phenotypic diversity in cellular migration
13:00 – EDO KUSSELL, New York University, USA. Memory accelerates bacterial adaptation in fluctuating environments
13:30 Lunch
Afternoon Session I (Chairman: Florencio Pazos)
14:30 - FERNANDO CASARES, CABD (CSIC-U. Pablo de Olavide), Spain. Gene Network Wiring and Eye Architectures in Drosophila
15:00 - CARSTEN PETERSON, Lund University, Sweden. Transcriptional regulation of lineage commitment in hematopoiesis - a stochastic model of cell fate decision
15:30 - NADIA MERCADER, CNIC, Spain. Cardiac regeneration vs. fibrotic repair: learning from the zebrafish
16:00 Coffee Break
Afternoon Session II Chairman: (Javier Tamames)
16:30 - MARTIN ACKERMANN, ETH, Switzerland. An Evolutionary Perspective on Bacterial Individuality
17:00 General Discussion and Conclusions
