International q-bio Conference on Cellular Information Processing
Encyclopedia
The International q-bio Conference on Cellular Information Processing is a leading systems biology conference intended to advance predictive modeling of cellular
Cell (biology)
The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life. The Alberts text discusses how the "cellular building blocks" move to shape developing embryos....

 regulation. The emphasis is on modeling
Scientific modelling
Scientific modelling is the process of generating abstract, conceptual, graphical and/or mathematical models. Science offers a growing collection of methods, techniques and theory about all kinds of specialized scientific modelling...

 and quantitative
Quantitative research
In the social sciences, quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques. The objective of quantitative research is to develop and employ mathematical models, theories and/or hypotheses pertaining to...

 experimentation for understanding and predicting the behaviors of particular regulatory systems, phenomena that manifest themselves in many biological systems, and/or general principles of cellular information processing
Cell signaling
Cell signaling is part of a complex system of communication that governs basic cellular activities and coordinates cell actions. The ability of cells to perceive and correctly respond to their microenvironment is the basis of development, tissue repair, and immunity as well as normal tissue...

.
The conference
Academic conference
An academic conference or symposium is a conference for researchers to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.-Overview:Conferences are usually composed of various...

 has been variously called by its participants "a watershed moment in modern biology" (John Doyle
John Doyle (engineer)
John Comstock Doyle is the John G Braun Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems, Electrical Engineering, and BioEngineering at the California Institute of Technology . He has a BS and MS in EE, MIT , and a PhD, Math, University of California, Berkeley...

, Caltech), "the conference with the most energy in years" (A. Dale Kaiser
Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research
The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research is one of the prizes awarded by the Lasker Foundation for the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of disease...

, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

), "an intellectual home" (Ido Golding, UIUC), and "the best systems biology
Systems biology
Systems biology is a term used to describe a number of trends in bioscience research, and a movement which draws on those trends. Proponents describe systems biology as a biology-based inter-disciplinary study field that focuses on complex interactions in biological systems, claiming that it uses...

 conference" (exit interviews of participants).

The q-bio conference is organized by the Center for Nonlinear Studies at the Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...

 and is further supported by NIGMS, the Center for Spatiotemporal Modeling of Cell Signaling Networks at the University of New Mexico
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...

 Cancer Center, and other sponsors. It is held annually during the second week of August in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...

, on the campus
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...

 of St. John's College
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...

. The first conference was held in 2007. The conference is preceded by the The q-bio Summer School, a two and a half week long school in Los Alamos, NM, which introduces graduate students and postdocs to modeling of complex biological systems.

The conference has featured about 30 invited talks, 10-20 contributed talks, and over 100 poster presentations. About 200 participants attend, and they are housed typically in St. John's student housing, creating an informal atmosphere encouraging spontaneous scientific discussions. Conference proceedings are published by IET Systems Biology.
The conference has featured some of the best-recognized scientists working in the q-bio field, including over a dozen members of the United States National Academies
United States National Academies
The United States National Academies comprises four organizations:* National Academy of Sciences * National Academy of Engineering * Institute of Medicine * National Research Council...

.

Previous conferences

  • q-bio 2010, August 11–14, 2010.
  • q-bio 2009, August 5–9, 2009, featuring, among others:
    • Bruce Alberts
      Bruce Alberts
      Bruce Michael Alberts is an American biochemist known for his work in science public policy and as an original author of the Molecular Biology of the Cell...

       (opening speaker)
    • Carlos Bustamante
      Carlos Bustamante
      Carlos José Bustamante is an American scientist. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.-Biography:Bustamante is an HHMI investigator and professor of molecular and cell biology, physics, and chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, a position he has held since 1998. He...

    • Rita Colwell
    • Nina Fedoroff
      Nina Fedoroff
      Nina Vsevolod Fedoroff is an American professor at Penn State university known for her research in life sciences and biotechnology. She received in 2006 the National Medal of Science in the field of Biological Sciences, the highest award for lifetime achievement in scientific research in the...

    • Michael Levine (closing speaker)
    • Douglas Lauffenburger
    • Vamsi Mootha
      Vamsi Mootha
      Vamsi Mootha is an Indian-American physician-scientist and computational biologist. He holds the position of Professor of Systems Biology and Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School...

    • Anthony Pawson
      Anthony Pawson
      Anthony 'Tony' James Pawson, OC, OOnt, CH, FRS, FRSC , British-born Canadian scientist whose research has revolutionized the understanding of signal transduction, the molecular mechanisms by which cells respond to external cues, and how they communicate with each other...

    • Linda Petzold
    • Alice Ting
  • q-bio 2008, August 6–9, 2008, featuring, among others:
    • Adam Arkin (closing speaker)
    • Robert Austin
    • Howard Berg
      Howard Berg
      Howard Curtis Berg teaches biophysics at Harvard University and studies motility of E. coli. He has been a member of the molecular and cellular biology department since 1986 and a member of the physics department since 1997...

       (opening speaker)
    • Sergey M. Bezrukov
      Sergey M. Bezrukov
      Sergey M. Bezrukov is a biophysicist notable for his work on ion channels and stochastic resonance.-Education:He received his MS in Electronics and Theoretical Physics fromSaint Petersburg Polytechnical University, 1973; and he obtained his PhD under...

    • Arthur Lander
      Arthur Lander
      Arthur D. Lander, M.D., Ph.D. is Director of the Center for Complex Biological Systems at the University of California, Irvine.He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and is an alumnus of John Dewey High School there. He received a B.A. from Yale University and a combined M.D., Ph.D from the University...

    • Thomas Pollard
    • Lucy Shapiro
    • Eduardo Sontag
    • Peter Wolynes
  • q-bio 2007, August 8–11, 2007

External links

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