Spring semester 2011: Today, more and more biological systems—from single molecules to whole populations—are being probed by quantitative experiments. In many cases, it has been possible to summarize the results of these experiments using mathematical models. This emergence of a more quantitative biology leads us to ask for more: can we, as in physics, discover broader theoretical principles from which we can predict the properties of many particular systems? Although this may seem a distant goal, in fact many groups already are exploring related principles in different biological contexts, successfully connecting these theoretical ideas to experiment. This workshop will bring together prominent advocates of these different ideas, in a collaborative environment, to explore the generality of candidate theoretical principles. The goal is to bring us closer to a theoretical framework that has both the generality and depth that we have come to expect from theoretical physics, yet engages with the details of quantitative experiments on particular biological systems. To organize the discussion, we will focus on two major themes, optimization and emergent behavior.

What follows is the current draft of the schedule. Please check back for updates.

All events are free and open to the scientific community, but we ask that you register by sending an email to its@gc.cuny.edu. We particularly encourage participation by students and postdoctoral fellows, and some funds are available to help with travel and lodging. The Graduate Center of the City University of New York is located at 365 Fifth Ave., between 34th and 35th Streets, in Manhattan. For more information about ITS programs, see http://web.gc.cuny.edu/its/. Program supported in part by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

Collective phenomena

Much of what is interesting about life results from interactions among large numbers of elements, and physicists have long hoped that the collective behaviors of such biological networks could be understood using ideas from statistical mechanics. The emergence of experimental methods that monitor many network elements simultaneously has triggered a new approach, in which we actually construct a statistical mechanics description of the system directly from these data.    This construction has been used successfully in systems ranging from amino acid sequences in families of proteins to networks of neurons in the retina and cortex to the flocking of birds, and second generation experiments are coming on line that promise to test predictions of the theory in some detail.  The ITS program will explore these developments, looking both at the foundational theoretical problems and at the details of the experimental situation in several different classes of systems.

7 - 11 Feb: Experiments on collective behavior in animal groups

Symposium on Tue 8 Feb

14 - 18 Feb:  Models of collective animal behavior

Discussion session on Tue 15 Feb

21 - 25 Feb:  Inverse problems and the statistical mechanics of biological networks

Symposium on Tue 22 Feb

28 Feb - 4 Mar:  Sequence ensembles and other examples

Discussion session on Wed 2 Mar

7 - 18 Mar:  Networks of neurons

Symposium on Tue 8 Mar

Optimization principles

As organisms go about the business of life, the laws of physics constrain their performance in important ways. Starting with the idea that the visual system can count single photons, many groups have suggested that evolution has pushed today’s organisms to the limits of what the laws of physics allow, so that their performance is optimized. Examples currently being explored range from bacteria controlling their metabolism to maximize growth rate to humans choosing their movement strategies to maximize the accuracy of reaching and pointing. Tantalizing connections are emerging among different example of optimization, and new experiments are bringing these principles into sharper focus. The ITS program will explore these ideas, both at the level of pure theory and through engagement with experiments on a wide variety of biological systems.

21 Mar - 1 Apr:  Metabolic control and related problems

Symposium on Wed 30 Mar

4 - 8 Apr:  The efficiency of photosynthesis

Symposium on Thu 7 Apr 

11 -15 Apr: Noise and information flow in genetic and biochemical networks

18 - 22 Apr: Sensory information processing and coding

25 - 29 Apr:  Strategies for motor control