As mentioned in the invitation, we would like all participants to submit an "illustrated abstract" as a preview of their presentation subject matter. Please limit your abstract to a few paragraphs plus two or three figures with legends and selected references. Once we have collected them all we will circulate a program and post them on a website. Please send your abstract to G. von Dassow no later than one week before the workshop.
The point of this workshop is to develop ideas on one hand about how the interactions of molecular building blocks make semi-autonomous units of cellular machinery that exhibit intrinsic behaviors, and on the other hand how to break down complex cell behaviors into functional modules. With this goal in mind, please prepare a more general, synthetic, and speculative presentation than you would for a typical seminar.
We want each participant to lead a discussion during his or her session. Everyone is therefore allotted 75 minutes. Please plan about 45 minutes worth of presentation materials, and we suggest you break it into subunits as follows:
Those of you covering the molecular level, please discuss how the molecular building blocks add up to functional modules (for example, what minimal components does it take to make a working spindle pole) and what are the intrinsic behaviors of those modules. If you are talking about whole-cell or tissue-level phenomena, please discuss what specific modules are needed to animate the whole process, and what essential features of those modules need to be explained.
A tentative schedule is attached. Keep in mind that this will be a discussion-oriented meeting. To encourage this informally, there are several hours of free time scheduled every afternoon. In lieu of a poster session we will have an informal show-and-tell prior to dinner every evening; we encourage you to bring movies or simulations or images that would not otherwise fit into your presentation, and we will provide the computers to show them on.
Visiting participants will be housed in the FHL dormitories, and all participants may dine in the FHL Dining Hall. FHL has a library with electronic access to many journals, a computer room with high-speed internet access, a laundry facility, etc. The campus is situated right on the water (rowboats are available) at the corner of a forested preserve with walking trails. FHL is an easy walk (∼2 km) from the town of Friday Harbor.
cytomechanical modules 2003 • back
