Welcome

December 7-9, 2009, Paris, FRANCE

From sparse entities... to crowded environments: numbers in living systems

Does a protein behave the same in a diluted solution or in the cellular environment where up to 40% of the total volume is physically occupied by macromolecules? How is the genetic variability affected when the size of a population strongly decreases as the humans may have experienced a long time ago? How come the mere presence of legionellae is not infectious whereas it becomes so above a certain population density?
In the living world, the number of entities and their density within the studied system, be they RNA polymerases or Siberian tigers, is a critical parameter for the properties of the system and for those of the entity itself. Tackling this issue is challenging, both from a theoretical and experimental point of view: how to count biological entities? how to theoretically describe stochastic effects of small numbers or the impact of crowding? how relevant are reductionist approaches?

We propose to go across disciplines and address the issue of numbers in living systems. Let's invite biologists, physicists, chemists, mathematicians and computer scientists to discuss about how they count and what they count, and whether they count on each other! As biology is integrating quantitative measurements of processes with qualitative descriptions of living entities, join us in Paris in December 2009.

Meeting people !

This symposium is organized as an opportunity to meet new people from diverse fields with a common interest in life sciences, sharing ideas and changing one's own point of view on different issues. Special emphasis will be put on questions, round tables and discussions. A blog will also be in place before, during and after the symposium, so that anyone interested in the issue will be able to contribute to the debate, at any time and from any place. Let's discuss and shake up ideas!