PRESS RELEASE

TOP SCIENTISTS IN SYSTEMS BIOLOGY MEET IN BARCELONA
 
On 30th and 31st October will take place the 12th CRG Annual Symposium titled “Biological Control Networks in Barcelona - BCN2“. This symposium will bring together the main experts in systems biology, tissue patterning, design of synthetic biological networks and many other aspects of networks in biology.
Biologists have been incredibly successful at finding many of the components of biological systems: all the "bits and pieces" such as the genes, the proteins etc. But it's increasingly clear that for many real biological systems this is just where the fun begins. The biochemical role of many of these components is simply to regulate each other - to switch each other on and off, much like the thousands of transistors in an electronic circuit. Systems biology therefore focuses more on the interactions rather than the components themselves, and therefore the concept of the network of interactions has become a central image.
Networks are an increasingly important way to represent many different complex biological processes for example driving the cell cycle, or controlling and coordinating cells during embryo development. Networks also play an important role in decision-making, which can operate at various different scales: for example an individual cell, which has to chose which fate to adopt, or at the level of interacting neurons which allow an entire organism to make decisions.
The 12th CRG Annual Symposium will bring together an outstanding list of international speakers, covering different types of networks and therefore different types of biology. These range from protein-protein interactions to systems neurobiology, including design of synthetic biological networks or regulatory networks for tissue patterning.
Most of these networks have the role of controlling something, so the goal of the meeting is to bring all these perspectives together under the general title of Biological Control Networks (BCN). It also aims to highlight the remarkable systems biology community in Barcelona (BCN) and to strengthen networking and collaboration amongst local and international laboratories.
 
More info about the Symposium:

• Symposium website: http://2013symposium.crg.es
• Speakers: http://2013symposium.crg.es/speakers/
• Program: http://2013symposium.crg.es/program/

Media contact:
Laia Cendrós, Press Officer, Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG)
Phone +34 93 316 02 37.