ICTS

Biology is undergoing a revolution. Advances in experimental techniques are providing data of unprecedented quality and detail on the mechanisms that operate in living systems, at scales ranging from molecules and molecular networks, to organisms, populations and ecosystems. It is clear that new theoretical and mathematical approaches are required if we are to learn from this flood of data. In response to this need, a large number of researchers from mathematics, physics and engineering are growing interested in biological problems. However, biology presents high barriers to entry: the sheer breadth of biological phenomenology, the rapid progress of the field, and a language of scientific discourse often inaccessible to the outsider. The ICTP-ICTS Winter School in Quantitative Systems Biology 2013, targeted at participants with quantitative backgrounds, is intended to help overcome these barriers.

Both ICTP and ICTS have a successful track record of providing researchers access to the forefront of scientific research. The Winter School will build on the shared experience of both institutions. Targeting young researchers, particularly those at the PhD and post-doctoral level with quantitative backgrounds, the School will give participants a broad introduction to open problems in modern biology, and provide pedagogical instruction on new quantitative approaches being used to address those problems. Lectures by internationally-recognized leaders in the field will be supplemented by tutorials on basic topics, and hands-on sessions designed to extend the pedagogical material.