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Transmission of information is a fundamental characteristic
of all living matter. One of the unifying themes of modern
biology is to study how both internal (genetic) and external
(environmental) information are acquired,stored, used
and transferred by biological systems. However, biological
systems are unique in their complexity. They differ from
the more familiar engineered information processing/communication
systems, in that the information processes in biological
systems are carried out by networks of biochemical reactions
with intrinsic spatial heterogeneity and large temporal
fluctuations. Therefore, the applications of ideas from
information theory and more importantly, its refinement
for the purpose of studying living systems present both
a challenge and at the same a tremendous opportunity for
researchers from other disciplines, such as computer scientist,
physicist and mathematician.
In this conference, we will bring together
leading researchers from these diverse disciplines (biology,
engineering, physics and mathematics) to present the
latest progress and development in studying signal processing
in biological systems. We will discuss the current challenges
and opportunities in this promising inter-disciplinary
field. One of the key questions we will explore is whether
there is a common way of representing biological information
so that they can be studied quantitatively in biological
processes ranging from genetics, evolution, to molecular
signal transduction and neural signal transmission.
In addition, we will organize a short
summer school for graduate students before the conference
to bring local graduate students up-to-date on subjects
ranging from basic information theory to its applications
to various biological systems.
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