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Workshop

Modularity of Biological Systems

875 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611 United States

Workshop Organizers

Reinhard Laubenbacher, University of Florida
Konstantin Mischaikow, Rutgers University
Herbert M. Sauro, University of Washington
H. Steven Wiley, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

 
Report

Overview

The hypothesis that biological systems exhibit a modular structure is widely accepted. Beyond being a “fundamental law of biology,” it has the potential for important applications, for instance in biomedicine and synthetic biology. It could also serve as an organizational principle for the analysis of high-dimensional complex -omics datasets. However, there is currently no widely accepted definition of what comprises a biological “module”. There is also a lack of foundational research on modularity at both the theoretical and applied level. To address this problem, the proposed workshop will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers from biology, modeling, mathematics, and fields outside of biology that currently use the modularity concept, such as engineering and computer science. Participants will work collaboratively to outline a research program consisting of a set of specific research projects that will deliver a rigorous basis for theoretical, technical, and applied research in this field.