Student travel support for BIRS workshop on programming with chemical reaction networks

更广泛的意义和重要性。这是一项要求为将在班夫国际研究站举行的化学反应网络规划讲习班提供5 000美元旅费的建议。该提案的主要目的是为参加该讲习班的学生提供旅费援助。他们的参与将包括口头报告和与专家就与化学反应网络的规划和实施有关的主题进行合作研究。来自美国院校的约7名学生和博士后将获得旅行资助，预计每位获奖者的平均奖金为720美元。通过资助学生和博士后的旅行，我们积极鼓励和激励新一代的研究人员为化学反应网络的研究做出贡献。旅行奖将鼓励学生参加并与该领域的其他人互动，从而培养下一代分子程序员。从长远来看，这对整个油田都有明显的好处。与会议不同的是，会议的大部分时间都用于正式的、准备好的演讲，而研讨会的大部分时间将是互动的，鼓励所有与会者的交流和参与。因为只有20名与会者，我们不仅鼓励学生和博士后积极参与，而且期待他们的积极参与。此外，讨论的非正式性质将允许年轻的研究人员见证研究的最初阶段，甚至在具体问题还没有形成之前，通过实例教会他们研究的创造性过程。最后，组织者做出了明确的努力，邀请妇女和代表性不足的少数民族参加研讨会。技术描述。对化学反应网络的研究可以追溯到150年前，当时古尔伯格和瓦奇首次提出了质量作用定律。20世纪70年代，数学界对数学的兴趣激增，尤其是霍恩、杰克逊和范伯格的基础工作，他们用稳定状态的存在性和/或唯一性来描述网络的子类。最近出现了一个数学界，也把化学反应网络作为正式的数学对象来研究，但主要关注的是理解它们进行计算的能力。虽然本质上是理论性的，但这条研究路线直接受到最近在分子水平上编程物质行为的实验努力的影响，使用DNA，酶和其他生化分子作为工程工具，从它们的生物功能重新定位为计算原语。本次研讨会的目的是将化学反应网络的不同方面的专家聚集在一起，从计算的角度研究工程化学系统的能力和局限性，自然化学系统的数学分析，以及处理真实化学品的实验学家。我们的目标是帮助这些不同的社区学习彼此的主要成果、技术和观点，确定不同项目背后的统一概念原则，并在这种跨学科互动的基础上为未来产生新的研究方向。

Broader significance and importance. This is a proposal requesting $5,000 for student travel support for the Programming with Chemical Reaction Networks, workshop to be held at the Banff International Research Station (BIRS). The primary purpose of the proposal is to give travel assistance to students who will participate in this workshop. Their participation will include oral presentations and collaborative research with experts on topics related to the programming and implementation of chemical reaction networks. Approximately 7 students and postdocs, from US institutions, will be funded for travel, with an expected average award of $720 per recipient. By funding travel to students and postdocs, we are actively encouraging and incentivizing a new generation of researchers to contribute to the study of chemical reaction networks. The travel awards will foster the creation of the next generation of molecular programmers, by encouraging students to attend and interact with others in the field. In the long term, this has clear benefits for the field as a whole. Unlike a conference, where the majority of the time is devoted to formal, prepared talks, the majority of the workshop will be interactive, encouraging communication and participation of all attendees. Because there will be only twenty attendees, active participation from students and postdocs will be not only encouraged but expected. Furthermore, the informal nature of the discussions will allow younger researchers to witness research in its earliest stages, before concrete problems have even been formulated, teaching them by example the creative process of research. Finally, the organizers have made an explicit effort to invite women and under-represented minorities to the workshop.Technical description. The study of chemical reaction networks dates back 150 years, when Guldberg and Waage first formulated the Law of Mass Action. The 1970s saw a surge of interest from the mathematical community, particularly the foundational work of Horn, Jackson, and Feinberg in characterizing subclasses of networks with guarantees on the existence and/or uniqueness of steady states. A more recent mathematical community has arisen, also studying chemical reaction networks as formal mathematical objects, but concerned principally with understanding their ability to carry out computation. Although theoretical in nature, this line of research is informed directly by recent experimental endeavors in programming the behavior of matter at the molecular level, using DNA, enzymes, and other biochemical molecules as engineering tools re-purposed from their biological function to serve as computational primitives. The intention of this workshop is to bring together experts in different aspects of chemical reaction networks, from the computational perspective studying the abilities and limitations of engineered chemical systems, the mathematical analysis of natural chemical systems, and experimentalists who deal with real chemicals. Our goals are to help these different communities learn the main results, techniques, and perspectives of each other, to identify unifying conceptual principles that underlie the different projects, and to generate novel research directions for the future based on this interdisciplinary interaction.