Connectionists: Workshop on Practical Inference Methods for Mechanistic Modelling of Biological Systems

[Mark Girolami]

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

-------------------------

PASCAL Workshop on Practical Inference Methods for Mechanistic Modelling
of Biological Systems 

 

Website: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/pimms

 

This is the third workshop of the PASCAL Thematic Programme 'Learning in
Computational and Systems Biology' and will be held in Glasgow,
Scotland, from 18th to 19th September 2007. The workshop will be
co-located with CMSB2007, Computational Methods in Systems Biology
http://conferences.inf.ed.ac.uk/cmsb07/

-------------------------

SCOPE: Within the context of Systems Biology there is a growing
requirement for the development of mechanistic models to support
reasoning about the structures of biochemical pathways. In addition to
defining such models, a means of objectively assessing the validity of
competing hypotheses regarding pathway structures based on experimental
data and prior knowledge is essential. As the models themselves will
have been identified from experimental observations for which there is
significant variability it is advisable to adopt a consistent grammar
for scientific reasoning that will take account of this uncertainty.

 

The Bayesian perspective is highly appropriate to enable consistent
reasoning over mechanistic models of biological systems. However, given
the intractable nature of the integrals required for an analytical
Bayesian solution we are required to turn to Markov chain Monte Carlo or
other approximating techniques to perform system identification and
model-based reasoning. Practical solutions to these problems are
critical to the utility and realism of systems biology models.

 

The goal of this workshop will be to explore the main methodological and
technical issues associated with performing Bayesian inference over
mechanistic biochemical pathway models. It will bring together experts
in systems biology, statistical inference and machine learning through
the PASCAL network.

-------------------------

INVITED SPEAKERS: Andrew Millar, Lorenz Wernisch, Dirk Husmeier & Julio
Vera Gonzalez

-------------------------

PROGRAM COMMITTEE: Mark Girolami, Simon Rogers, Magnus Rattray, Neil
Lawrence, Florence d'Alche, Guido Sanguinetti

-------------------------

CALL FOR PAPERS: One page abstracts of contributed papers should be sent
by email to: pimms at dcs.gla.ac.uk by 9am GMT July 6th. Notification of
acceptance will be sent out on the morning of July 13th.

-------------------------

Information on arrivals, accommodation, and registration: see
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/pimms

 

Location: Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow,
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Professor M.A. Girolami FIET
Department of Computing Science
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ
Scotland UK

Tel : +44 (0)141 330 8628
Fax: +44 (0)141 330 8627

email : girolami at dcs.gla.ac.uk

web: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~girolami

----------------------------------------------------------