The Vanderbilt conference will provide a forum at which students and young scientists can explore interdisciplinary approaches to cell signaling, pharmacology, and cell biology. During the conference, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and computational scientists will present and assess quantitative models of how cells communicate with one another. Specifically, they will identify promising methods and theories, and trace future directions for this emerging field. The keynote speaker will be Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., from the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. Session topics include DETAILED LOCAL MODELS OF SIGNALING PATHWAYS, CELLULAR MODELS AND SPATIAL COMPLEXITY, EXPERIMENTAL APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING NETWORKS, and ANALYSIS OF NETWORK ARCHITECTURE. AstraZeneca, a U.S. pharmaceutical company, will also sponsor the conference.
The three FUTURES follow-up conferences will examine a wide range of approaches to signaling systems. These conferences offer researchers who participated in the November conference – titled SIGNALS, DECISIONS, AND MEANING IN BIOLOGY, CHEMISTRY, PHYSICS, AND ENGINEERING – the opportunity to build on discussions they began there. The hosts for the two other follow-up conferences will be announced in coming months.
Funded by a $40 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, the National Academies KECK FUTURES INITIATIVE is a 15-year effort to catalyze interdisciplinary inquiry and to enhance communication among researchers, funding agencies, universities, and the general public. The objective of the FUTURES INITIATIVE is to stimulate interdisciplinary research at the frontiers of scientific inquiry. The FUTURES INITIATIVE builds on three pillars of vital and sustained research: interdisciplinary encounters that counterbalance specialization and isolation; the identification and exploration of new research topics; and communication that bridges languages, cultures, habits of thought, and institutions. Toward these goals, the multifaceted National Academies Keck FUTURES INITIATIVE incorporates three core activities each year: FUTURES conferences, FUTURES grants, and National Academies Communication Awards.
For more information about the conference, or to register to attend, visit http://medschool.mc.vanderbilt.edu/math_conference/index.php or call 615-322-0672. Additional information on the Keck FUTURES INITIATIVE is available at http://www.national-academies.org/keck or from Marty Perreault at 949-387-5783.