Recent advances in experimental techniques for molecular cell biology have provided a wealth of information concerning numerous low-level mechanisms that participate in the life of a cell. It is, however, commoly recognized that in order to make use of this information and build models having predictive power for more complex systems, biological models should be elevated from the verbal and quasi-formal levels of description in which they are formulated today, and become closer to the standards of "harder" scientific and engineering disciplines. Of course, such an upgrading of modeling standards should involve conceptual innovations to deal with the specifics of biological systems in terms of complexity and experimental limitations.
The goal of the workshop is to bring together potential participants in this systems biology endeavor, that is system-aware biologists together with researchers in domains that may provide a source of inspiration to this evolving field, most notably engineering disciplines like computer science, electronics and control as well as physics and applied mathematics.
