Multi-scale Stochastic Modeling of Cell Dynamics (10w5058)

The Banff International Research Station will host the "Multi-scale Stochastic Modeling of Cell Dynamics" workshop from January 17th to January 22nd, 2010.

The past decade has been marked by an increasing focus on systematic studies of complex interactions in biological systems. Accordingly there is a need for new quantitative approaches that can improve our understanding of how complex pathway hierarchies and their components interact to define various functional networks within cells. Cells are inherently "noisy" systems, and identifying how these complex pathways respond to intrinsic and extrinsic stochastic conditions is an additional challenge requiring new stochastic results.

Cellular networks involve many different molecular species, interconnected by an even larger number of chemical reactions, which poses a complex analytical problem. For prediction and simulation purposes, it is essential to reduce both the modeling and computational complexity of the problem, while still capturing all the essential characteristics and behavior of such a network.
This has recently stimulated the development and analysis of stochastic models for biochemical networks and dynamics with multiple scales. This workshop focuses on elucidating the mathematical and statistical approaches which can directly contribute to solving some of these problems.

The Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery (BIRS) is a collaborative Canada-US-Mexico venture that provides an environment for creative interaction as well as the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and methods within the Mathematical Sciences, with related disciplines and with industry. The research station is located at The Banff Centre in Alberta and is supported by Canada's Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Alberta's Advanced Education and Technology, and Mexico's Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologí­a (CONACYT).