Predictive Models of Complex Systems Sponsored by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Hosted by the Center for Cell Dynamics

June 3-7, 2006 The empirical description of biological systems has entered a rapid growth phase. The development of high throughput technologies (e. g. genomics, proteomics, large-scale phenotypic profiling, etc.) has accelerated the quest to identify and characterize “parts lists”, both at a molecular and cellular level. At the same time, advances in microscopy and imaging technologies (e.g. GFP, begun here at the FHL) are producing ever-more-detailed descriptions of the dynamics of biological processes. Together these constitute a new and pressing challenge: how to make mechanistic sense of this welter of empirical detail; that is: how to relate known properties of the parts and their interactions to the functional behaviors of the larger systems they comprise. A similar challenge faces all areas of biology; in response, a new field of computational biology has begun to emerge, one in which computer simulation models, based on the known or hypothesized empirical details and constrained by physical and chemical laws, form an essential predictive bridge between different levels of empirical description. This symposium will bring together leaders in the emerging branch of Systems Biology, drawn from the five National Centers for Systems Biology and the broader scientific community, to discuss the present state, and future of, the field. Moreover, this gathering will serve to highlight the emerging use of empirically detailed computer simulation models in biology through a series of successful exemplars, drawn from molecular and cellular biology, developmental biology, neurobiology and physiology. Final agenda (5.19.06) Getting to Friday Harbor The meeting is fully subscribed. Registration is now closed. Invited Speakers only may still fill out the registration form

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