Conference on stochastic gene expression from an experimental, theoretical and philosophical perspective

Date:

21 Nov 2011 to 23 Nov 2011

Location:

Lyon, France

Stochastic gene expression (SGE) is involved in an evergrowing number of aspects of cellular life. It is typically an area of research needing modelization and interdisciplinary collaboration between biologists, bioinformaticians, physicists and mathematicians. SGE is an important aspect of cellular physiology that has to be integrated into systemic approaches and as such it is now the object of much attention of the international community. It raises a number of questions regarding its role in organisms, notably in developmental biology and could have profound consequences for biological theories: is it a "noise" that disrupts the operation of the genetic program, does it fits into a vision based on the theories of self-organization, or does it implies a conceptual framework change such as cellular Darwinism ?

It is clear that the intrusion of probability in molecular biology is not straightforward. It calls into question not only the design of deterministic gene expression, but the whole tradition of biology, which has always been deterministic regarding the internal functioning of organisms. As in physics, the question inevitably arises of the status of probability in biology: is it a subjective probability (epistemic), dependent on a lack of complete information upon the studied phenomena and ultimately reducible or is it an objective (ontological) stochasticity dependent on the intrinsic nature of the living process, and thus irreducible?

The emergence of stochastic gene expression therefore raises important questions about its implications not only for biological theories but also about its epistemological status. Furthermore, it causes reluctance among biologists for number of historical reasons that should be understood for being bypassed.

For all those reasons they organized in the center Cavaillès (ENS-Paris) a multidisciplinary conference in French in 2008, entitled "Le Hasard au Coeur de la Cellule”. This conference brought together experimental and theoretical biologists, modelers, epistemologists and philosophers who addressed all those issues. This conference attracted a large audience and was a successful interdisciplinary exchange.

The conference that they are now organizing aims at extending this initiative by giving it an international dimension. They plan to publish the outcome of this meeting. The holding of this conference will bring a new theoretical and epistemological dimension for research in this multidisciplinary field and create a unique opportunity for interaction between participants.

For more information about the program and registration, click here.

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