DIMACS Workshop on Control Theory and Dynamics in Systems Biology

May 18 - 20, 2009
DIMACS Center, CoRE Building, Rutgers University

Organizers:
Eduardo Sontag, Rutgers University, sontag at math.rutgers.edu
Patrick De Leenheer, University of Florida, deleenhe at math.ufl.edu
Presented under the auspices of the DIMACS/BioMaPS/MB Center Special Focus on Information Processing in Biology.

This special focus is jointly sponsored by the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS), the Biological, Mathematical, and Physical Sciences Interfaces Institute for Quantitative Biology (BioMaPS), and the Rutgers Center for Molecular Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry (MB Center).


The development and maturation of systems biology in recent years, has been occurring at a rapid pace. Guided by the increasing availability of data sets from the work of experimental labs, many pathways have now been identified and a substantial effort in mathematical modeling has been initiated to unravel them. It is expected that this will ultimately lead to a better understanding of the cell's function, and this in turn is anticipated to have a profound impact on the design of drugs, treatment schedules, and health policies in times when health care is a major issue on a global scale.

Simulations of the models generated for these biological systems should be complemented by mathematical analysis, especially in view of the uncertainty and lack of knowledge of the values of model parameters.

Several mathematical tools based on control-theoretic thinking have already begun making a contribution in systems biology. Some examples are the theory of monotone input output systems, passivity theory, and feedback control theory in general, and we expect that the talks in this workshop will highlight these, as well as other approaches. In contrast to other workshops in systems biology, this one will emphasize rigorous mathematical theory.

The workshop itself will take place on May 18 - 20, 2009. The two days following, May 21 - 22, 2009 will be dedicated to "working group" discussions of research topics. The current list of speakers is as follows:

  D. Anderson, University of Wiscosin-Madison 
  M. Arcak, University of California-Berkeley 
  M. Banaji, University of Essex and University College London 
  M. Chaves, INRIA-Sophia Antipolis 
  C. Conradi, Max Planck Institute 
  G. Craciun, University of Wiscosin-Madison 
  D. Del Vecchio, University of Michigan 
  G. Enciso, Harvard University and University of California-Irvine 
  V. Fromion, INRA Jouy-En-Josas
  T. Gedeon, Montana State University 
  J. Gunawardena, Harvard University 
  J. Hespanha, University of California- Santa Barbara 
  M. Hirsch, University of California-Berkeley and University of Wiscosin-Madison 
  B. Ingalls, University of Waterloo 
  M. Khammash, UC Santa Barbara (tentative)
  L. Wang, University of California-Irvine 


Next: Call for Participation
Workshop Index
DIMACS Homepage
Contacting the Center
Document last modified on November 3, 2008.