THE FIRST CRG PRACTICAL SUMMER COURSE "MODELLING FOR SYSTEMS BIOLOGY" WAS A SUCCESS
This 5-day long course, held at the CRG July 4-8, provided a broad introduction to systems biology, with a focus on dynamical modelling of networks, to an audience of 16 PhD students and post-docs with a background in biology or bioinformatics. It was financially supported by the Systems Biology (SB) Programme of the CRG as well as the SysteMTb research project from the European Commission.
CRG Systems Biology group leaders Matthieu Louis and Johannes Jaeger — together with two Systems Biology post-docs, Anton Crombach and Alex Gomez-Marin — designed an exciting program covering theoretical lectures in the morning accompanied by a series of hands-on exercises during the afternoons. Hilde Janssens — supported by Blanka Wysocka from the CRG events office — coordinated the course, integrating scientific and educational needs.
The teaching team consisted of 7 world-class external instructors, 2 internal teachers, and 5 CRG post-docs/PhD students to provide assistance during practical sessions. Each day was concluded with a public lecture of one of the external teachers. Several topics were covered such as dynamical systems theory, stochastic systems, frameworks and methods to model biological networks, multivariate and multidimensional data analysis, techniques for parameter inference, reverse engineering, biophysical and cellular models. All theoretical parts of the course were accompanied by a series of hands-on exercises during the afternoons.
The participants rated the course very highly. Their comments speak for themselves:
“Loads of scientific fun!”
“A week long exposure to the concepts of modeling. Demanding and enjoyable.”
“Mind-blowing crash course in how to look at your data, at your approach, a given scientific question in an unprecedented unbiased way.” 
“A very interesting and fruitful experience which totally motivates to sit down and try “stuff” out.”
“It gave me a vast overview on all kind of models that can be applied to biological data.”
Thanks again to everyone who made this course a success!
 
MORE INFORMATION:
Organizers
Luis Serrano
Johannes Jaeger
Matthieu Louis
Anton Crombach
Alex Gomez-Marin
Hilde Janssens
Teachers
Parvez Ahammad, Janelia Farm Research Campus, USA
Nicolas Buchler, Duke University, Durham, USA
Javier Buceta, Barcelona Science Park, Barcelona, Spain
Felix Campelo Aubarell, CRG, Barcelona, Spain
Anton Crombach, CRG, Barcelona, Spain
Alex Gomez-Marin, CRG, Barcelona, Spain
Verônica Grieneisen, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK
Johannes Jaeger, CRG, Barcelona, Spain
Rob Jelier, CRG, Barcelona, Spain
Nicolas Le Novère, EBI, Hinxton, UK
Matthieu Louis, CRG, Barcelona, Spain
Theodore Perkins, OHRI, Ottawa, Canada
Jörg Stelling, ETH, Basel, Switzerland
Judith Wodke, CRG, Barcelona, Spain