Mathematical Models in Biology: from Information Theory to Thermodynamics (Online) (20w5074)
The Banff International Research Station will host the "Mathematical Models in Biology: from Information Theory to Thermodynamics" workshop online, from July 26 to July 31, 2020. All living things, from the simplest bacteria to human beings, are made of cells. Fundamental understanding of living systems, both in health and in disease, depends on understanding the complex interactions among and within living cells. Multiple scientific disciplines have separately shed light on the problems of communication and organization in living systems. Biochemistry, bioinformatics and systems biology describe the basic ingredients of cells: DNA, RNA, proteins, lipids, and their interactions. Information theory, founded by Claude Shannon, provides a framework for quantifying the flow of information through any communications system, whether living or engineered (or both, as in the rapidly growing field of synthetic biology). Statistical thermodynamics, the branch of physics concerned with transformations among different forms of energy as well as with the physics of information, sets fundamental limits on the energetic price cells must pay for the information they sense (from each other, from the environment, and from their own DNA).
