Objectives

Understanding of biological systems such as a cell, which are intrinsically complex in nature, requires a multidisciplinary approach. Engineering disciplines such as mechanics, control theory, and systems engineering can potentially make significant contributions to the fundamental understanding of the workings of biological systems. This emerging, interdisciplinary area of cell/molecular biology and engineering systems poses major challenges to the research communities, but holds tremendous promises and opportunities.

The proposed workshop aims to identify the important issues in this emerging research area, to examine the appropriate platform/approaches for conducting such research, and to provide recommendations to the research communities and funding agencies for future activities and possible new initiatives. The workshop is by-invitation only. 35-40 experts with diverse background in engineering, biology, and biophysics will be invited. In addition to the short presentations to review the state of current research and education activities, significant portion of the workshop will be devoted to breakout sessions to brainstorm on the key workshop objectives, and to produce a report to guide future activities.

The workshop will be held at NSF on December 20-21, 2007. The travel expenses of all invited participants from academia will be fully or partially reimbursed.