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Workshop 2: Stochastic Processes in Cell and Population Biology (October 24-28, 2011)

Organizers: Timothy Elston, Thomas Kurtz, Johan Paulsson, and Mike Simpson

Many stochastic features of intracellular processes have close counterparts in population biology. Intrinsic and extrinsic noise in gene expression are similar to demographic and environmental noise in the sizes of metapopulations, with expression bursts corresponding to litter sizes. The near-critical dynamics when two subunits form hetero-dimers are in turn similar to gender-balance fluctuations for organisms that form couples, while intracellular incompatibility is similar to the mutual exclusion principle in ecology. The effects of the cell cycle on chemical abundances resemble seasonality effects on populations, while partitioning errors at cell division are similar to the combination of migration and death before returning to breeding grounds. Both fields also study density-dependent negative and positive feedback loops formed through mutual interactions between agents.

Though the selective pressures are different, there are very strong synergies between these two fields, both in terms of the effects studied and the mathematical methods used. This workshop will exploit those synergies by bringing together researchers who study stochastic aspects of cell and population biology.

Accepted Speakers

  • Linda Allen (Mathematics and Statistics, Texas Tech University)
  • David Anderson (Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
  • Ellen Baake (Biomathematics & Theoretical Biomathematics, University of Bielefeld)
  • Gabor Balazsi (Systems Biology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center)
  • Timothy Elston (Phamacology, UNC School of Medicine)
  • John Fricks (Statistics, Penn State University)
  • Peter Jagers (Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg)
  • Peter Kramer (Mathematical Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
  • Mike McCollum (Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University)
  • Hans Metz (Mathematics Institute, University of Leiden)
  • Judith Miller (Mathematics, Georgetown University)
  • Ilya Nemenman (Physics, Emory University)
  • Hans Othmer (School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota)
  • Garegin Papoian (Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of Maryland)
  • Johan Paulsson (Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School)
  • Linda Petzold (Mechanical Engineering & Computer Science, University of California, Santa Barbara)
  • Sebastian Schreiber (University of California, Davis)
  • Michael Simpson (Materials Science and Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
  • Gurol Suel (Pharmacology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas)
  • Lev Tsimring (BioCircuits Institute, University of California, San Diego)
  • Amandine Veber (Centre de Mathématiques Appliquées, École Polytechnique)
  • Leor Weinberger (Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego)
  • John Yin (Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison)