Workshop on Logic and Systems Biology

系统生物学是研究由许多相互作用的部分组成的生命系统的一个新的科学领域。这些分子可以是细胞内的分子，也可以是有机体内的细胞，也可以是生态系统内的单个生物。它不同于经典生物学，后者主要专注于理解生命系统基本单元的行为，而系统生物学关注整个系统的属性。它必然是一门交叉学科，运用生物学、化学、计算机科学、数学和物理学的方法。计算机科学是系统生物学的核心。由于生物系统是如此复杂，传统的分析和建模方法不充分或效率太低而不实用。软件分析的一些主要问题与系统生物学有着惊人的相似之处。这两个领域的研究人员都必须处理不能用直观的、非正式的方法理解的系统。这导致了用于描述和测试系统的软件辅助工具的开发。从事软件分析工作的计算机科学家获得的经验在应用于系统生物学时可能非常有用。逻辑与系统生物学研讨会隶属于2014年在奥地利维也纳举行的计算机科学逻辑(LICS)会议，定于7月13日举行。研讨会将包括一天的特邀讲座和一节讨论开放问题和未来研究的课程。讲座将讨论计算机科学和生物学之间的各种联系，重点是形式逻辑在生物分子相互作用系统建模中的应用。系统生物学为计算机科学带来了挑战和机遇。尽管从事系统生物学工作的计算机科学家的数量正在增加，但他们仍然只占人口的一小部分。这些讲座面向的是计算机科学家，他们对分析软件和硬件的正式方法有一定的了解，但可能对生物学没有太多经验。讲座将探讨生物学、计算机科学和数学之间的联系，目的是鼓励不同小组的研究人员之间的合作，导致逻辑的新应用，并提出有趣的理论问题。将特别鼓励学生和博士后研究员参加研讨会。由于讲座将部分是说明性的，这将是他们拓宽视野的机会，未来将为他们的研究和教学带来好处。

Systems Biology is a new area of science that studies living systems comprised of many interacting parts. These could be molecules within a cell, cells within an organism, or individual organisms within an ecosystem. It differs from classical biology, which has largely focused on understanding the behavior of the fundamental units of living systems, whereas systems biology is concerned with properties of the entire system. It is necessarily an interdisciplinary subject, using approaches from biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, and physics.Computer science is central to systems biology. Because biological systems are so complex, traditional methods of analysis and modeling are inadequate or too inefficient to be practical. There are striking similarities between some of the major problems of software analysis and systems biology. Researchers in both areas must deal with systems that cannot be understood by intuitive, informal methods. This has led to the development of software aids for describing and testing systems. The experience gained by computer scientists working on software analysis could be very useful when applied to systems biology. INTELLECTUAL MERITThe Workshop on Logic and Systems Biology is affiliated with the 2014 Logic in Computer Science (LICS) Conference in Vienna, Austria and is scheduled for July 13. It will consist of one day of invited lectures and a session for discussion of open problems and future research. The talks will cover a variety of connections between computer science and biology, with emphasis on the uses of formal logic in modeling biomolecular interaction systems.Systems biology presents challenges and opportunities for computer science. Although the number of computer scientists who work on systems biology is growing, they still represent a small fraction of the population. The lectures are intended to be accessible to computer scientists who have some knowledge about the use of formal methods for analyzing software and hardware, but who may not have much experience with biology. The speakers will also be invited to submit more technical versions of their talks to a refereed proceedings.BROADER IMPACTThe lectures will explore connections between biology, computer science, and mathematics, with the goal of encouraging collaborations between researchers in the different groups, leading to new applications of logic and raising interesting theoretical questions. Students and postdoctoral fellows will be especially encouraged to participate in the workshop. Since the talks will be partly expository, this will be an opportunity for them to broaden their perspective, with future benefits to their research and teaching.