Bioinformatics II: Modeling biological complexity and diversity

Bioinformatics II Subtitle: Modeling biological complexity and diversity

Schedule: Friday 10:15 - 13:00

Person in charge: M. MILINKOVITCH

Teachers MILINKOVITCH, ZAKANY, TZIKA, JAHANBAKHSH

Miscellaneous
Prerequisites: basic mathematical skills and an interest in physics. Programming skills (preferably in Python) are a substantial plus.

Content
Cells, developing embryos, the brain, colonies of organisms, ecosystems are all examples of ‘adaptive complex systems’: they each exhibit collective behaviours that go way beyond the capabilities of their isolated components. 

We will discuss various concepts pertaining to the emergence of order, complexity, and diversity in these biological systems: non-linearity, chaos, information theory, genetic algorithms, self-organisation, swarm intelligence, modularity, etc.

We will also present mathematical models  (regulatory networks, deterministic & stochastic reaction-diffusion systems, cellular automata, etc.) to study some of these concepts, and discuss how to use numerical simulations to study them.

Several practical sessions on computers (numerical simulations in Python) and in the laboratory (setting up examples of complex systems, collect and analyse data) will be organised. 

Objective
Realise the importance of self-organisation in the emergence of biological complexity and diversity. Study simple but relevant models of self-organisation through numerical simulations.