Workshop on "Cell Biology, Fluorescence Microscopy, and Geometry"
A small informal workshop on "Cell Biology, Fluorescence Microscopy, and Geometry", jointly organized by the IHÉS (Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques) in Bures-sur-Yvette and the MIS (Max-Planck-Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences) in Leipzig, will take place from Sunday, June 5 (day of arrival), to Wednesday, June 8 (day of departure).
Extremely successful efforts in molecular biology and biochemistry have led to an unprecedented accumulation of metabolic, proteomic, genomic, and gene regulatory data. However, recent emphasis on "molecular systems biology" has underlined how far we remain from understanding the basic dynamics of healthy and dysfunctional cells. One probable reason for this is that the techniques providing the most voluminous data do not yield sufficient information on the spatio-temporal organization and dynamics of a cell's chemistry and biochemistry.
This, however, is not the case for fluorescence microscopy, a technique that has been developed intensively since about 1970, but which goes back, in principle, to 1904. Since then, its potential for analysing the spatio-temporal organization of proteins and other bio-molecules in living tissue has been continuously unfolding. New methodologies for exploiting this tool and for analyzing the resulting data are currently being developed at many places.
Bringing together (i) researchers in fluorescence-microscopy based cell biology and (ii) mathematicians and theoreticians whose goal is the development of viable methods for the analysis of the basic molecular dynamics of cell and tissue organization, the workshop will provide a forum for discussion of these methodologies and the insights they reveal. It will concentrate in particular on the principles underlying the spatio-temporal organization of proteins and other bio-molecules in structurally intact tissue or, for short, on topological proteomics.
The purpose of the workshop is to further explore the potential of these new methodologies in fundamental cell biology, and, in particular,the application to analysis of diseases: from psoriasis, diabetes, chronic pain, and Alzheimer's, to cancer and muscular dystrophy.
The program will include lectures by David Epstein, Günter Gerisch, Misha Gromov, Mike Khan, Klaus Scherrer, Walter Schubert, Peter Serocka, Spencer L. Shorte, and others (not yet confirmed). Young researchers who want to work in this field are particularly encouraged to join this workshop.