Perspective on the q-bio Summer School and Conference: 2007 – 2014 and beyond

Graphical abstract

References

[1] Bernstein, R. (2014) Communication: Spontaneous scientists. Nature, 505, 121−123

[2] Edwards, J. S., Faeder, J. R., Hlavacek, W. S., Jiang, Y., Nemenman, I. and Wall, M. E. (2007) Q-bio 2007: a watershed moment in modern biology. Mol. Syst. Biol., 3, 148

[3] Wall, M. E., ed. (2013) Quantitative Biology. Boca Raton FL: CRC Press.

[4] Tay, S., Hughey, J. J., Lee, T. K., Lipniacki, T., Quake, S. R. and Covert, M. W. (2010) Single-cell NF-kappaB dynamics reveal digital activation and analogue information processing. Nature, 466, 267−271

[5] Lou, C., Stanton, B., Chen, Y. J., Munsky, B. and Voigt, C. A. (2012) Ribozyme-based insulator parts buffer synthetic circuits from genetic context. Nat. Biotechnol., 30, 1137−1142

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The q-bio Conference and Summer School were launched as part of an initiative of the Center for Nonlinear Studies (CNLS) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), which at the time was headed by Drs. Robert E. Ecke and William S. Hlavacek. The launch of this initiative would not have been possible without the involvement of several CNLS affiliates, including Drs. James R. Faeder, Yi Jiang, Ilya Nemenman, and Michael E. Wall, in particular Dr. Wall, who was a key driver of conference organization, and Dr. Nemenman, who was a key driver of summer school organization. CNLS is supported by the Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program Office at LANL, which in turn is supported by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the US Department of Energy (DOE) through contract DE-AC52-06NA25396. The school was launched in partnership with the LANL Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), which was the principal sponsor of the school in its early years. At the time, IAS was headed by Dr. Steven J. Buelow, under the oversight of LANL Institutes Director Dr. Nancy N. Sauer. The LANL Information Science and Technology Center, headed by Dr. Francis J. Alexander, has also supported the q-bio Conference and Summer School over the years. From the start, several regional organizations, in addition to those mentioned above, have supported the q-bio Conference and Summer School, including the New Mexico Consortium, a non-profit research institute located in Los Alamos that is headed by Ms. Katharine Chartrand; the University of New Mexico (UNM) Cancer Center, which is supported by a grant (P30CA118100) from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and which is headed by Dr. Cheryl L. Willman; and the Center for the Spatiotemporal Modeling of Cell Signaling (STMC), which is a National Center for Systems Biology supported by a grant (P50GM085273) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of NIH. The STMC was originally headed by Dr. Janet M. Oliver and is currently headed by Dr. Bridget S. Wilson. Several STMC affiliates played key roles in launching and sustaining the q-bio Conference and Summer School; in addition to those already mentioned these individuals include Drs. Elaine L. Bearer, Jeremy S. Edwards, and Diane S. Lidke. The Molecular Sciences Institute (MSI) was one of the original sponsors of the q-bio Conference. Additional sponsors of the conference have included Plectix BioSystems and Emory University. The q-bio Conference enjoyed direct support from NIGMS for five years through grant R13GM082163, and since 2013, the q-bio Summer School has been supported by NIGMS through grant R25GM105608. The conference has been strongly supported by researchers in the quantitative biology community who have served as local organizers, program committee members and advisory committee members^†

See the q-bio website (http://q-bio.org/wiki/The_q-bio_Summer_School_and_Conference) for lists of organizers, program and advisory committee members from each year of the q-bio Conference and Summer School.

. Likewise, the summer school has been strongly supported by researchers who have served as course leaders and lecturers^†

See the q-bio website (http://q-bio.org/wiki/The_q-bio_Summer_School_and_Conference) for lists of course leaders and lecturers from each year of the q-bio Summer School.

. Finally, we acknowledge the editors and editorial staffs of the journals IET Systems Biology and Physical Biology, which have published special issues dedicated to work discussed at the q-bio Conference, and the q-bio reviewers who have helped select manuscripts for publication. We also acknowledge the critical contributions of the support staff of the conference and summer school, which have been drawn mostly from CNLS, NMC, UNM, and St. John’s College, and the volunteers who have assisted the organizers of the conference and summer school over the years. The content of the summer school and this perspective article is solely the responsibility of the organizers and authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg