CoMPLEX Annual Workshop 2008

UCL, 7th November 2008

This years CoMPLEX annual workshop will focus on Evolution and Development.

Speakers will include:

• Miltos Tsiantias, Oxford - Plant leaf morphology and gene expression
• Eors Szathmary, Hungary - Early evolution
• Andreas Wagner, Austria - Gene networks
• James Briscoe, NIMR - Vertebrate nervous system
• Pat Simpson, Cambridge - Evodevo insect sensory systems
• Paola Oliveri, UCL - Gene regulatory networks in early development

Biological Complexity: From Molecules to Systems

UCL, 12th-13th June 2008

This two day meeting will be held at UCL in June. The meeting will feature a fantastic group of speakers from the UK and the Weizmann Institute , Israel.

Register (registration fees have been kept extremely low) as soon as possible as numbers are strictly limited by the size of the auditorium. To register and to submit a poster e-mail Michelle Jacobs at post@weizmann.org.uk

Full details can be found here.

Alex Mogilner - University of California, Davis

Tuesday 17th June 2008

Location: Roberts 508

Time: 16.30

Force-balance models of the dynamical shapes of migrating cells and mitotic spindles

The balance between actin, microtubules, membrane tension and
motor-generated forces can explain quantitatively (1) the 'fan-like' shape of crawling
keratocyte cell, and (2) Drosophila spindle length. Both experimental data and computational models will be discussed.

David Baum - University of Wisconsin

Tuesday 20th May 2008

Location: Roberts 508

Time: 16.30

Genetic common garden experiments and what they can tell us about the genetic basis of species differences

In ecology it is common to grow organisms from different environments in a "common garden" so as to environmental and genetic differences. By analogy if you replace a gene from one species with that of different species, you can find out whether this gene in isolation (free of its genetic environment) contributes to the phenotypic differences between the species. I will describe both candidate gene transformation experiments and experiments that entail screening a donor genome for the capacity to alter the phenotype of a recipient genome.

Tom Duke - UCL

Tuesday 22nd April 2008

Location: Roberts 508

Time: 16:30

The physical basis of sound detection in hearing

The key to the ear's remarkable acuity is a process of active amplification, which boosts the response at low levels. Confirmation that the ear is powered comes from the surprising observation that it can emit, as well as receive sound. What is the physical nature of the active amplifier and how does it work so effectively? I will discuss a theory based on recent knowledge that has been gained from delicate experiments on the sensory cells within the inner ear.

Damian Brunner - University of Zurich

Thursday 15th May 2008

Location: LMCB

Time: 16.30

Zippering of Tubes and Tissues

My lab investigates the mechanisms that lead to specific spatial microtubule organization in two organisms, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe.
In Drosophila we focus on dorsal closure (DC), a wound healing related process where a gap in the epithelium at the dorsal side of the embryo is closed. The completion of DC is dependent on a transient re-arrangement of microtubules, which form bundles that align parallel to the long cell axis at the apical cell side. A similar microtubule arrangement is found in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe during interphase. This is crucial for the correct deposition of proteins involved in growth site positioning and for local force production that indirectly controls the proper positioning of the cell division site.

Shi Zhou - Adastral Park, UCL

Monday 14th April 2008

Location: Wolfson House Library

Time: 14.00

Modeling the evolving internet topology

This talk has two parts. Firstly I will introduce the positive feedback preference (PFP) model which precisely reproduces the largest set of important characteristics of the Internet AS-level topology. The model uses a dynamic approach based on network evolution mechanisms. The model has been regarded as one of the most advanced Internet topology generators. I will show that the Chinese Internet AS graph can also be accurately reproduced by the PFP model using exactly the same parameters, suggesting that the Chinese Internet preserves the structural characteristics of the global Internet. This work provides a new dimension of the Internet's topological fractality performed at the level of topology evolution modelling. Secondly I will introduce a new link-rewiring algorithm, which produces surrogate random networks that preserve both the degree distribution and rich-club coefficient of a given network. Numerical results obtained by this algorithm explain why the PFP model is able to reproduce the degree-degree correlation in the Internet by considering only the degree distribution and the rich-club coefficient. This work suggests that the structural constraints between topological properties can provide fundamental knowledge of a network’s inherent nature, and such knowledge is the key to characterise and model network topologies.