Workshop 3: Robustness in Biological Systems
(February 6-10, 2012)
Organizers: Frank Doyle, Richard Durrett, Arthur Lander, and Andreas Wagner
Most biological systems from the subcellular to the population population level must solve the following difficult problem. They must continue to function reliably despite continually changing environmental inputs and despite individual differences in internal parameters due to genetic polymorphisms. That is, their functions should be robust to natural biological variability. On the other hand, these systems must also respond robustly and change their functions in response to biologically important external or internal signals. The biological systems that we see have evolved elaborate regulatory mechanisms in order that they can accomplish both tasks. Examples include metabolic and neural networks, development, adaptation, and population diversity. Most of these systems are not resting at equilibria, but rather exist in a dynamic stochastic equilibrium. Thus the mathematical issues involve understanding when this stochastic equilibrium is relatively stable and when it makes large shifts in response to appropriate biological signals.
Accepted Speakers
- Ricardo Azevedo (Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston)
- Neda Bagheri (Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
- Declan Bates (Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Exeter)
- Buzz Baum (Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London)
- Aviv Bergman (Systems & Computational Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University)
- Jean Carlson (Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara)
- Suzanne Gaudet (Genetics, Harvard University)
- Kunihiko Kaneko (Basic Science, The University of Tokyo)
- Joanna Masel (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Arizona)
- Chris Myers (Biotechnology Center, Cornell University)
- Ilya Nemenman (Physics, Emory University)
- Qing Nie (Mathematics, University of California, Irvine)
- Frederik Nijhout (Biology, Duke University)
- Mark Siegal (Biology, New York University)
- Jörg Stelling (Biosystems Science and Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich)
- Stephanie Taylor (Computer Science, Colby College)
- Paul Turner (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University)
- Andreas Wagner (University of Zurich, Inst. of Evolutionary Biology, and Environmental Studies)
- Jon Wilkins (Evolutionary Theory, Santa Fe Institute)
