This workshop is organized by Rudolf Hanel and Stefan Thurner, Medical University of Vienna & CSH Vienna.
Abstract
This workshop is intended to advance our understanding of the interplay between structure, dynamics, and evolution of non-linear regulatory systems, which can be found in a broad spectrum of essential processes, such as the regulatory dynamics of cellular organisms at a molecular level but also at a species level. For this we bring together both theoreticians and biologists in an attempt to match interests in and knowledge about such systems from both sides. The idea is to first sketch how mathematical models of regulatory networks naturally involve non-linear dynamical aspects, and the phenomenological consequences one would hence expect. This includes a discussion of dynamical stability, attractor landscapes and multi-stability in large regulatory systems, and “evolutionary forces” that may govern the emergence of modular regulatory components in the course of evolution. Second, we would like to discuss related aspects from the Biologists perspective. One aim here is to better understand some exceptional data sets which in combination with methods from non-linear dynamical systems theory have the potential for analyzing dynamical gene regulatory systems. The first day will be spent with discussing both mathematical, biological, and experimental aspects. The second day lead to the planning of small projects.