CSHL Conference: Engineering Principles for Biological Sciences, December 10-13, 2008 in Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory, New York.

我们建议为研究生和博士后研究人员提供支持，让他们参加2008年12月10日至13日在冷泉港实验室举行的生物系统工程原理会议。这次会议的目的是促进工程师、数学家和生物学家之间通过工程原理的应用来促进对不同生物系统的分析感兴趣的跨学科思想和专业知识的交流。这笔赠款的支持将用于帮助希望参加会议的本科生和博士后研究人员抵消会议的费用。智力上的好处：通过进化的过程，生命系统保留了他们为了生存而必须解决的问题的偶然出现的解决方案。在过去，理论生物学主要集中在解释这种溶液背后的物理化学机制，而以功能-溶液对的形式进行的解释一直是以相对枯燥的方式研究的，没有从学科的角度来探讨。这次会议将促进一种新兴的理论生物学方法的发展，更加正式地强调设计或工程原理。这里的前提是，尽管生物系统中的解决方案或设计不是工程设计的，而是通过自然选择逐渐产生的，但它们仍然可以在与人类工程系统一起发展的工程理论框架下以现有形式进行研究。本次会议是由Partha Mitra(CSHL)、Richard Murray(加州理工大学)和其他人组织的一系列研讨会和会议的一部分，以帮助培养研究人员社区，他们致力于了解各种规模的生物系统的理论框架。这些理论的起点可以从工程系教授的课程中得出。因此，想法是从现有的主要工程理论(控制、通信、计算)开始，检查这些理论是否适用于生物系统，如果不适用，哪些修改是必要的。这一系列会议，特别是这次CSHL会议，将为生物研究人员提供一个教育机会，让他们了解可能与他们的工作相关的工程理论，并为工程理论家和计算机科学家提供一个了解他们可能有助于理解的生物学问题的机会。大会的每一次会议将有两次受邀演讲，分别由一名生物学家和一名理论家/工程师进行，并结合从提交的摘要中选择的一组贡献的演讲。分裂和更广泛的影响：拟议的会议将促进这种新的方法，以了解其成功所需的生物系统和跨学科的协作文化。会议地点和形式是鼓励公开讨论和发起协作努力的理想场所，希望持续举行的一系列此类会议也将鼓励制定一个持久和进步的理论框架。为了补充对与会者的直接培训机会，在会议上发表的演讲将放在一个网站上，供更广泛的科学界使用。将向个别演讲者提供选项，通过领先的Strand网站公开他们的演讲。

We propose to provide support for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to attend aconference on Engineering Principles for Biological Systems, to be held at Cold Spring HarborLaboratory on 10--13 December 2008. The conference is intended to foster cross-disciplinaryexchange of ideas and expertise between engineers, mathematicians and biologists interestedin the analysis of diverse biological systems through the application of engineering principles.Support from this grant would be used to help offset the cost of the conference for graduatestudents and postdoctoral researchers who wish to attend.Intellectual Merit: Through the process of evolution, living systems retain solutions arisen bychance to problems they must solve in order to survive. In the past, theoretical biology haslargely focused on explanations of the physico-chemical mechanisms behind such solutions,while explanation in the form of function-solution pairs has been studied in a relatively ad hocmanner and has not been approached from a disciplinary perspective. This conference willpromote the development of an emerging approach to theoretical biology with more formalemphasis on design or engineering principles. Here, the premise is that although solutions ordesigns in biological systems are not engineered but instead arise incrementally through naturalselection, they may nevertheless be studied in their existing forms in the framework ofengineering theories developed alongside human-engineered systems.This conference is part of a series of workshops and conferences organized by Partha Mitra(CSHL), Richard Murray (Caltech) and others to help foster a community of researchers workingon theoretical frameworks for understanding biological systems across a variety of scales. Astarting point for these theories can be drawn from courses taught in engineering departments.The idea is therefore to start with major existing engineering theories (controls, communication,computation) and to examine whether these apply to biological systems, and if not, whatmodifications are in order. The conference series and this CSHL conference in particular, willprovide an educational opportunity for biological researchers to learn about engineering theorieswhich may be relevant to their work, and for engineering theorists and computer scientists tolearn about biological problems they might help to be understood. Each session at theconference will have a two invited talks, one each by a biologist and a theoretician/engineer,integrated with a set of contributed talks, chosen from submitted abstracts.Dissemination and Broader Impact: The proposed conference will foster this new approach tounderstanding biological systems and the collaborative culture across disciplines that itssuccess will require. The conference venue and format are ideal for encouraging opendiscussion and initiating collaborative efforts, and it is hoped that a continuing series of suchmeetings will also encourage the development of an enduring and progressive theoreticalframework. To complement the direct training opportunity for conference participants, talkspresented at the conference will be put on a website for the benefit of the wider scientificcommunity. Options will be provided to individual presenters to make their talks publiclyavailable through the Leading Strand web site.