Workshop on Information Processing in the Biological Organism (A Systems Biology Approach)

November 4-5, 2003
Four Points Sheraton, Bethesda, Maryland (5 minutes walk from NIH)

Organizers:

SCIENTIFIC CONTACTS:
Fred S. Roberts, Chair, DIMACS / Rutgers University, froberts@dimacs.rutgers.edu

Eduardo Sontag, Co-chair, Rutgers University, http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~sontag

CONTACT FOR ORGANIZATIONAL MATTERS:
Christine Spassione, DIMACS / Rutgers University, spassion@dimacs.rutgers.edu

Presented under the auspices of the Special Focus on Computational Molecular Biology and sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Workshop Program:

Tuesday, November 4, 2003

 8:15 -  9:00  Registration

 9:00 -  9:15  Opening Remarks:
               Fred Roberts, Rutgers University: Program Chair
               Mitra Basu, NSF
               Eric Jakobsson, NIH

 9:15 - 10:10  Keynote Address: Systems Biology: Deciphering Life
               Leroy Hood, Institute for Systems Biology

10:10 - 10:30  Break

10:30 - 12:45  Signal Fusion within the Cell

               Moderator: Leslie Loew, University of Connecticut Health Center

               Keynoter: Signaling in a Molecular Jungle
               Dennis Bray, Cambridge University

               Confirmed Speakers:
               Quantitative Experiments and Modeling of PDGF Receptor Signaling
               Jason Haugh, North Carolina State University;

               Analysis of a Cell Signaling Network
               Ravi Iyengar, Mt. Sinai

               Information transfer in signaling pathways: Gradient sensing
               Andre Levchenko, Johns Hopkins University

12:45 -  1:45  Lunch

 1:45 -  4:00  Cell to Cell Communication

               Moderator: Stanislav Shvartsman, Princeton University

               Keynoter: Small Talk:  Cell-to-Cell Communication in Bacteria
               Bonnie Bassler, Princeton University

               Confirmed Speakers: 

               Counter-Intuitive Insights from Spatially Realistic Simulations 
               of Synaptic Transmission
               Joel Stiles, Carnegie Mellon University 

               Interrogative Cell Signaling: How cells perceive their context
               H.Steven Wiley, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

               Oocytes on "cell" phones - EGFR signaling in Drosophila
               Joseph Duffy, Indiana University

 4:00 -  4:20  Break

 4:20 -  5:50  Discussion Groups Meet Separately (One corresponding to each 
               Session topic)

 7:00          Dinner* 
               After-Dinner Speaker*: Juan Enriquez, Harvard Business School Life Science Project
 
* The banquet and speaker are joint with the other BISTI satellite meeting on "Information
  Science Standards to Enable Biomedical Research" being organized in collaboration with 
  the National Institute of Standards and Technology and being held in the same hotel on 
  the same dates as our meeting. See URL: http://www.nist.gov/director/NIH/workshop.htm


Wednesday, November 5, 2003 

 8:30 - 10:45  Genetics to Gene Product Information Flows

               Moderator: Gustavo Stolovitzky, IBM

               Keynoter: Learning Predictive Models of Cellular Systems
               David Gifford, MIT 

               Confirmed Speakers: 
               Inferring Dynamic Architecture of Cellular Networks
               by Perturbation Response Analysis
               Boris Kholodenko, Thomas Jefferson University;

               Reconstructing synthetic biological networks using pair-wise
               correlation analysis
               Gustavo Stolovitzky, IBM

               Dynamics of the p53-mdm2 feedback loop in living cells,
               and the design-principles of biological feedback
               Galit Lahav and Uri Alon, Weizmann Institute of Science

10:45 - 11:05  Break

11:05 - 12:05  Are There Genuinely New Challenges in Computer Science, Math, and 
               Physics Arising from Information Processing in the Biological Organism?"
               Moderator: Eduardo Sontag, Rutgers University

               Confirmed Speakers:

               Systems Biology as a Generator of New Mathematics
               Eduardo Sontag, Rutgers University (Mathematics and BIOMAPS Institute)

               The Challenge of Understanding Bio-molecular Specificity
               Anirvan Sengupta, Rutgers University (Physics)

               Challenges for computer science and math as a part of Systems Biology
               Benno Schwikowski, Institute for Systems Biology

               Panel Discussion 

12:05 -  1:05  Lunch

 1:05 -  3:20  Information Flow at the System Level

               Moderator: Modeling Tumors As Complex Dynamic BioSystems
               Tom Deisboeck, Harvard University

               Keynoter: Information Flow at the Systems Level: The Organization
               and Modeling of Experimental Data Across Multiple Scales of
               Biological Analysis
               Raimond Winslow, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine & Whiting School of Engineering

               Confirmed Speakers:

               Computational models of cortico-striatal-hippocampal interaction
               during learning: Implications for neurological disorders of memory
               Mark Gluck, Rutgers University

               Multiscale Complexity in Health and Information Loss with
               Aging and Disease
               Ary Goldberger, Harvard University

               The Fluid Organs of Immunity: Phase transitions in bacterial pathogenesis
               Tom Kepler, Duke University

 3:20 -  3:40  Break

 3:40 -  4:40  Discussion Groups 

 4:40 -  5:20  Closing Plenary Session for Discussion Group Reports and Presentation


Note: The moderators of the discussion groups will stay on to help prepare
recommendations for the BISTIC Symposium.

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