Scientific Calendar Event



Description
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in cooperation with CNRS - GDRI Evolution, Regulation and Signaling, is organizing a Conference on Sensing, Information and Decision at the Cellular Level, which will be held at ICTP, Trieste, Italy, from 14 to 17 July 2015.
 
The ability of cells to detect signals from the exterior, interpret them correctly, and take appropriate actions, is key to their success as individuals or as part of a multicellular organism. Evolution has endowed cells with sensory systems characterized by exquisite sensitivity, rapidity and reliability of response. One of the most interesting and recent developments of the molecular biology of sensory systems has been the recognition that these mechanisms are often much the same from amoebae to man. Underlying the variety is a remarkable unity, which motivates the search for general principles at the basis of their structure and function. The purpose of this workshop is to gather scientists at the forefront of the multidisciplinary field at the interface between physics, statistics, molecular biology, neurophysiology and cognitive science, with the aim of offering a refreshing view on the deep connection between signal transduction at the molecular level and the theory of information and decision-making.

PARTICIPATION
 
Scientists and students from all countries that are members of the United Nations, UNESCO or IAEA may attend the activity. As it will be conducted in English, participants must have an adequate working knowledge of this language. Although the main purpose of the Centre is to help researchers from developing countries through a programme of training activities within a framework of international cooperation, a limited number of students and post-doctoral scientists from developed countries are also welcome to attend.
 
As a rule, travel and subsistence expenses of the participants are borne by their home institutions. Every effort should be made by candidates to secure support for their fare (or at least half-fare). However, limited funds are available for some participants, who are nationals of, and working in, a developing country, and who less than 45 years of age. Such support is available only to those attending the entire conference. There is no registration fee for attending the conference.
Go to day
  • Tuesday, 14 July 2015
    • 08:30 - 21:30
      Location: Adriatico Guest House - Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 08:30 Registration 1h0' ( Adriatico Guest House - (Lower Level 1) )
      • 09:30 Single neuron computation at multiple timescales 1h30'
        Speaker: Adrienne Fairhall (University of Washington)
      • 11:00 Coffee break 30' ( Adriatico Guest House - Terrace )
      • 11:30 Mice develop efficient search strategies to find odor sources using airborne plumes 1h30'
        Speaker: Agnese Seminara (LPMC CNRS)
      • 13:00 Lunch break 1h30'
      • 14:30 Mechanism of T cell specificity for pathogens: implications for the influence of host genetics on HIV control 1h30' ( Adriatico Guest House - Kastler Lecture Hall )
        Speaker: Andrej Kosmrlj (Harvard University)
      • 16:00 Coffee break 30' ( Adriatico Guest House - Terrace )
      • 16:30 Optimal sensory coding theories for neural systems under biophysical constraints 1h30'
        Speaker: Chris Rozell (Georgia Tech)
      • 18:00 Strong together: collective sensing and response 1h30'
        Speaker: Erel Levine (Harvard University)
      • 19:30 Welcome reception 2h0' ( Adriatico Guest House - Terrace )
  • Wednesday, 15 July 2015
    • 09:30 - 19:00
      Location: Adriatico Guest House - Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 09:30 Similarity matching – a new framework of neural computation 1h30'
        Speaker: Dmitri Chklovskii (Simons Foundation)
      • 11:00 Coffee break 30' ( Adriatico Guest House - Terrace )
      • 11:30 Limits to gene regulation by global crosstalk 1h30'
        Speaker: Gasper Tkacik (Institute of Science and Technology Austria)
      • 13:00 Lunch break 1h0'
      • 14:00 Two case studies in cell sensing and response: Cell size control in fission yeast and quantitative epigenetic memory of winter cold in Arabidopsis 1h30'
        Speaker: Martin Howard (John Innes Center)
      • 15:30 Coffee break 30' ( Adriatico Guest House - Terrace )
      • 16:00 Stochastic thermodynamics and cellular information processing 1h30'
        Speaker: Udo  Seifert (Stuttgart University)
      • 17:30 Signal propagation in animal groups 1h30'
        Speaker: Asja Jelic (ICTP)
  • Thursday, 16 July 2015
    • 09:30 - 19:00
      Location: Adriatico Guest House - Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 09:30 Bacterial chemotaxis as an evolutionary optimized behavior 1h30'
        Speaker: Victor Sourjik (University of Heidelberg - MPI Marburg)
      • 11:00 Coffee break 30' ( Adriatico Guest House - Terrace )
      • 11:30 Lessons from case studies on bacterial sensing and regulation 1h30'
        Speaker: Ulrich Gerland (Technical University of Munich)
      • 13:00 Lunch break 1h0'
      • 14:00 Poster session 1h30' ( Adriatico Guest House - Lower Level 1 )
      • 15:30 Diversity, selection and organization in immune receptor repertoires 1h30'
        Speaker: Aleksandra Walczak (ENS Paris)
      • 17:00 Coffee break 30' ( Adriatico Guest House - Terrace )
      • 17:30 The neural representation of running speed and its integration into the rat's internal GPS 1h30'
        Speaker: Emilio Kropff (Instituto Leloir - ICTP)
  • Friday, 17 July 2015
    • 09:30 - 15:30
      Location: Adriatico Guest House - Kastler Lecture Hall
      • 09:30 Thermodynamic cost of data representation 1h30'
        Speaker: Susanne Still (University of Hawaii)
      • 11:00 Coffee break 30' ( Adriatico Guest House - Terrace )
      • 11:30 Maxwell’s demon in biochemical signal transduction with feedback loop: the role of information flow in biological communication 1h30'
        Speaker: Sosuke Ito (Tokyo University)
      • 13:00 Lunch break 1h0'
      • 14:00 Neuronal visual processing in the brain: from the retina to the cortex 1h30'
        Speaker: Sancho Moro (Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra)