Events

This Friday, February 17th, the CRI club Fabelier will welcome Amelia Andersdotter, European deputy for the Swedish Pirate Party, at 5pm.

LIVE STREAMING : http://www.ustream.tv/channel/fabelier

RECORDED LIVE : http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/20507055




Amelia will talk about contemporary information policy, internet freedom and will explore with us the existing and future bridges between hackerspaces, fablabs, universities, entrepreneurship, open science, and more.

Above all we wish a free interaction with the audience and a question-based event, so bring your projects and ideas with you !

Date : 17/02/2012 at 17:00

Location :Amphithéatre Lutton (groundfloor)
Fac de Médecine
24 rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques
75014 PARIS

An event organized by Fabelier, already announced by OWNI and La Cantine.

Wikipedia : Amelia Andersdooter (born 30 August 1987, Enköping) is a Swedish politician and Member of the European Parliament (MEP), elected on the Pirate Party list in the 2009 election. She became inaugurated in December 2011, being the youngest member of the current parliament.

Her blog : http://stenskott.wordpress.com/
Follow her Twitter : http://twitter.com/teirdes

Mitch Altman at Fabelier CRI Paris : Arduino / TV-B Gone workshop

Mitch Altman came to visit Fabelier on Feb. 7th 2012 for an "Arduino for Total Newbies" 3 hours workshop, from 7pm to 10pm.



This workshop taught the participants how to build their own Arduino and how to use it to build a TV-B-Gone


(Mitch Altman photos)

Chris DiBona, the open source guru at Google, will be our Fabelier guest at the CRI Paris tonight at 19:00 for the Web Semantic Workshop.

He will take some time to speak about his work at Google, Open-Source and his various projects.

You are all welcome to join !

http://fabelier.org/chris-dibona-at-fabelier/

Prix FBS pour les Jeunes Chercheurs, décembre 2011

Chaque année, quatorze prix, d'un montant de 25 000 euros chacun, sont attribués à de jeunes docteurs en sciences afin de leur permettre d'effectuer leur stage post-doctoral dans les meilleurs laboratoires étrangers.

Ce prix, crée en 1990, constitue une des premières initiatives de la Fondation.
Il a déjà permis de financer le stage post-doctoral de plus de 200 jeunes chercheurs.

Cette année, deux Docteurs Frontières du Vivant de la promotion 2007, Jeremie Barral et David Bikard font partie des lauréats 2011 de ce Prix pour les Jeunes Chercheurs.

Un grand bravo à tous ces jeunes chercheurs à qui l'on souhaite les plus grands succès dans leur carrière scientifique !

The CRI had the pleasure to host Esteban Romero, professor at the Department of Finance and Accounting at the University of Granada (Spain) during his 3 months visit (September 15th - December 15th 2011).

On his personal website, back in Granada, he reports about "the most remarkable activities I carried out at the Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires " among us with lively testimony, videos and pictures he has produced during his stay.

Thank you Esteban for your comments !

The CRI is honoured to welcome Prof. Laurent Keller (University of Lausanne) for a presentation that will take place on November 10th at 18:30 at the CRI.

Don't miss this special event !

Talk title : "Evolution of a social chromosome in ants".

Abstract of the talk by Laurent Keller :

"In this talk I will discuss how interactions between genes and social environment influence behavior and social organization. In particular, I will show that, in ants, worker behavior and gene expression profiles are more strongly influenced by indirect effects associated with the genotypic composition of workers within their colony than by the direct effect of their own genotype. This constitutes an unusual example of an "extended phenotype," and suggests a complex genetic architecture directly and indirectly influencing the individual behaviors that, in aggregate, produce an emergent colony-level phenotype. I will finally discuss of these gene by environment interactions underlie the presence of two distinct modes of social organization."


Laurent Keller's webpage

The CRI Fabelier club is proud to welcome a Special Guest, Jeff Clune from Creative Machines Lab, Cornell University

Some of you many know Jeff's work from his online project http://endlessforms.com/
In this talk, he will tell us about simulating evolution, evolving programs that control robots, as well as crowdsourcing the evolutionary process. Questions and discussion will be encouraged, as always.

Time: Wednesday, 9 November, 18:30.
Place: Room 2006, Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity, Medicine Faculty Cochin, 24 rue du Fabourg Saint Jacques

Talk abstract:

"I will describe my work with an algorithm that combines evolution with developmental biology to automatically produce complex designs. This algorithm enables the generation of complex, regular phenotypes, such as three-dimensional objects and artificial neural networks to control robots. The evolved morphologies and neural networks exhibit desirable properties found in their natural counterparts, such as symmetries and repeated motifs. I will also describe a project that combines this algorithm with crowdsourcing to allow internet users to collectively explore the evolutionary design space. At EndlessForms.com, visitors individually direct evolutionary processes similar to how breeders evolve roses or dogs. Collectively, visitors have evaluated over 2.4 million objects and have produced an interesting and diverse set of evolved objects."

Biography :
Jeff Clune is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Hod Lipson's lab at Cornell University, funded by a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology from the National Science Foundation. He studies generative encodings, which enhance evolutionary algorithms by augmenting them with concepts from developmental biology. These concepts enable the assembly of complex neural networks and other forms from compact genomes. One of Jeff's current projects is EndlessForms.com, a website for designing and printing 3D objects with such encodings. Jeff also develops evolutionary algorithms to investigate open questions in evolutionary biology, and has published work on the evolution of altruism, phenotypic plasticity, and evolvability. Jeff was the co-chair of the Generative and Developmental Systems track at GECCO, the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (2010-2011). He has a Ph.D. in computer science from Michigan State University, a master's degree in philosophy from Michigan State University, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Michigan. Articles about his research have appeared in news publications such as MSNBC.com, The New Scientist, The Daily Telegraph, Slashdot, MIT's Technology Review, and U.S. News & World Report.

website : http://jeffclune.com/

Elena V. Gostjeva from MIT BOSTON will present an informal seminar:

"Cancer stem cells, radio- and chemo- resistance and how to kill them', or just to talk science."

She has also rising interest to talk about cells (prokaryotic, eukaryotic, resistance).

This event will take place Friday 21 October, 11h30-12h30, at CRI -Cochin, room 2006.

Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires
Faculté de Médecine Paris Descartes
24 rue du faubourg Saint Jacques
75014 Paris

E. Gostjeva's biography
Source : http://mit.edu/ans/www/seminar3.html

Elena V. Gostjeva is a Research Scientist in the Department of Biological Engineering, MIT and also at the Institute of Biotechnology, Kiev, Ukraine. She graduated from Vavilov's Institute of General Genetics (Moskow, USSR) in 1986 and joined the "Genetic Risk Assessment" group, Radiobiological Expedition in Chernobyl' (Ukraine) of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Dr. Gostjeva studied the consequences of radiation exposure on human health in contaminated areas of the Ukraine and accepted the offer to become head of the "Genetic Risk Assessment" group at Kiev Polytechnical Institute in 1995. She originally developed her quantitative image cytometry methods to detect chromosomal aberrations induced by long-term low dose radiation in plants, animals and humans. These methods were later applied at MIT for the analysis of origin of chromosomal instability in human colon adenocarcinomas and finding that the stem cells of organogenesis and carcinogenesis have a peculiar mode of DNA replication when divide symmetrically and aymmetrically.

Together with Prof. William Thilly, whom she met in Stockholm, 1996 working for Swedish Radiation Protection Instutute and married in 1997 and moved to USA, she has developed a "juvenile stem cell mutator" hypothesis regarding the timing and cellular location of tumor initiation mutations. She is organizing collaborations to develop novel cancer treatments aimed at eradication of cancer stem cells that curiously resistant to radiotherapy. The latter is a present collaboration with Prof. Jackie Yanch, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT.

The CRI is happy to welcome Avigdor Eldar (PhD at Weizmann with Naama Barkai, post-doc at CalTech with Michael Elowitz) is now leading his own group at the Tel-Aviv University.

Title of his talk: A Bacterial tower of Babel - How cheating and lying can diversify bacterial communication

Date: Friday, 28 October at 7:30 in our CRI seminar room 2006

Abstract: In microbial "quorum sensing" (QS) communication systems, microbes produce and respond to a signaling molecule, enabling a cooperative response at high cell densities. Many species of bacteria show fast, intra-specific, evolutionary divergence of their QS pathway specificity -- signaling molecules activate cognate receptors in the same strain but fail to activate, and sometimes inhibit, those of other strains. Despite many molecular studies, it has remained unclear how a signaling molecule and receptor can coevolve, what maintains diversity, and what drives the evolution of cross-inhibition. I will describe a theoretical work that explains the evolutionary forces of diversification if QS controls other cooperative acts such as the secretion of enzymes. Co-evolution is positively selected by cycles of alternating "cheating" receptor mutations and "cheating immunity" signaling mutations. The maintenance of diversity and the evolution of cross-inhibition between strains are facilitated by facultative cheating between the competing strains. I will describe experimental directions for exploring this problem and some preliminary results.

Main Publications:

1. Partial penetrance facilitates developmental evolution in bacteria
Avigdor Eldar ,Vasant K. Chary, Panos Xenopoulos, Michelle E. Fontes,Oliver C. Losón, Jonathan Dworkin, Patrick J. Piggot PJ, Michael B. Elowitz. Nature , 460(7254):510-4 (2009).

2. Determinants for the Subcellular Localization and Function of a Non-essential SEDS protein.
Gonçalo Real, Allison Fay, Avigdor Eldar , Sérgio M. Pinto, Adriano O. Henriques, and Jonathan Dworkin. Journal of Bacteriology, 190: 363-376 (2008)

3. Interpreting clone-mediated perturbations of morphogen profile
Avigdor Eldar and Naama Barkai. Developmental Biology , 278(1), 203-7 (2005)

4. Elucidating mechanisms underlying robustness of morphogen gradients
Avigdor Eldar , Ben-Zion Shilo and Naama Barkai. Current opinion in genetics and development, 14(4), 435-9 (2004)

5. Self-Enhanced Ligand Degradation Underlies Robustness of Morphogen Gradients
Avigdor Eldar , Dalia Rosin, Ben-Zion Shilo and Naama Barkai. Developmental Cell , Vol 5, 635-646 (2003)

6. Robustness of the BMP morphogen gradient in Drosophila embryonic patterning
Avigdor Eldar , Ruslan Dorfman, Daniel Weiss, Hilary Ashe, Ben-Zion Shilo and Naama Barkai
Nature 419, 304-308 (2002)

Dale Stephens


The Learnit Lab, a new place to experiment and exchange ideas about education, is proud to announce a talk+workshop featuring Dale J. Stephens, an unschooler, Thiel fellow and founder of the Uncollege movement.

Dale J. Stephens, in his talk, will probably challenge some basic assumptions many people hold about higher education.

This will happen this tuesday October 12th at 19:00, right after the opening days. But surprise! Instead of the standard talk and Q&A, Dale will also join us the following day, Wednesday 13th at 19:30 for a workshop where we can all collaborate to solve some interesting problems.

Full details about the workshop here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=244555782261216

Learnit Lab Ks a collaborative project between les Nouveaux Étudiants, Makesense and the CRI - The Center of Interdisciplinary Research. Our goal is to help you to meet, work together and with some world famous experts in the field.

(http://thielfoundation.org/)
(http://www.uncollege.org/)

CRI Opening Days, September 2010.

The new year opening seminar will take place on Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th of October 2011, in the amphithéâtre Jean-Pierre LUTON on the groundfloor (RDC) of the Faculty of Medicine COCHIN, 24 rue du faubourg St Jacques, Paris 14.

This seminar is mandatory for all FdV and AIV students. It will be the occasion to get to know each other, share our scientific interests and build together much of the year's program, in particular to organize and initiate the year's CRI clubs (workshops) as well as the AIV / FdV program of courses and seminars of the year.
These activities open for all our students will be also the occasion to carry out administrative steps that might still be necessary for them.

This year, in addition to the AIV master and FdV PhD programs the CRI is happy and proud to welcome in our community the new undergraduate program "Licence Frontières du Vivant"!

As you well know, during this meeting, we will work to establish the year's content and activities, focusing on how to enrich the links between the different programs for the benefit of all. Current AIV and FdV students are presenting themselves through a poster.

Don't miss this special event and our two Guest talks :
- Michel MORANGE (Ecole Normale Supérieure, IHPST) on Monday 10th at 9:15 AM (amphi LUTON)
- Alan JOHNSTON, CoMPLEX (Centre for Mathematics and Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology), University College London, on Monday 10th at 18:00 (amphi LUTON)

Download the Opening Days program.

new! Photo gallery - Friday 9.9.2011

CREATING INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH PROJECT WORKSHOP
SEVRES, 4-9 September 2011

The workshop, set in Sèvres (near Paris), intends to assemble free spirited students and researchers from broad scientific backgrounds to conceive creative projects at the interface with Life Sciences.
This year will combine newcomer students of the FdV PhD program, 2nd year AIV master program and will host students of the new Licence FdV program on Friday.

The CIRP workshop attempts to provide the primary basis for collegiality and communication through dialogue and brainstorming on open questions in Life Sciences.

Aims of the workshop :

Some sessions have been recorded and you can watch them on our vimeo channel :
Andrew Murray, Ron Milo, Drew Endy, Johan Paulson, Adam Wilkins, Etienne Couturier, Simon Houriez...

Workshop: Hands-on Experiments, Scientific Discovery Games and Citizen Science
Learning through Research for all

Paris, July 10-13, 2011

Organizers: François Taddei, Ariel Lindner & Livio Riboli-Sasco

Aims of the workshop

Learning by practising true scientific research provides invaluable experience as one gets not only the classical scientific knowledge that is produced by what François Jacob called "day science", but also the thrill of "night science" that only the exploration of the unknown can provide. Unfortunately, too few people have access to such experiences as research is mostly conducted in the few places that have the resources and trained faculties.

Interestingly, different initiatives that focus on promoting "hands-on experiments" that are cheap and easy to realize and to "citizen science", "crowd sourcing of research " and "scientific discovery games". These changes to educational practices make night science accessible to any internet users and allows even the youngest children to contribute to scientific research.

This workshop aims at bringing those who innovate along these lines, together with motivated students and innovative faculty members. We will look for synergies between the different scientific areas covered by the projects that have been proposed, as well as in between online and real life activities as both can promote learning through research. Finally, we will discuss possibilities to attract larger audiences and look for ways of stimulating the development of such approaches on larger scales across the globe.


Speakers by order of talk

Zoran Popovic (University of Washington)
Harry Swinney (University of Texas)
François Taddei (CRI, Inserm, Paris Descartes University)
Eva-Maria Schoetz (HoS, Princeton University)
Mark Shattuck (HoS, City University of New York)
Michael Schatz (HoS, Georgia Tech)
Kenneth Showalter (HoS, West Virginia University)
Ingmar Riedel-Kruse (Stanford University)
Scott Barolo (University of Michigan)
Robert Full (University of California Berkeley)
Jeehyung Lee (Carnegie Mellon)
Joseph Niemela (Trieste, International Centre for Theoretical Physics ICTP)
Onofrio Gigliotta (ISTC Roma and University of Naples Federico II)
Thomas Schaus (Harvard)
Thomas Murphy (University of Mariland)
Kenneth Stanley (University of Central Florida)
Eva Guinan (Harvard)
François Grey (CERN, Citizen Cyberscience Center, Geneva)
Beau Lotto (University College London)

About the speakers (bio, useful links...)

Program & Participants

Débat "A quoi ressemblera l'éducation de demain?" avec François Taddei au CRI dans le cadre de la thématique "Les jeunes changent le monde" de Changemakers' City Paris.



Date : le vendredi 17 juin 2011 de 16h à 19h.

Lieu : Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires
Adresse : Faculté de Médecine, site Cochin Port-Royal
Université Paris Descartes
24, rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques 75014 Paris
RER B Port Royal / M° St Jacques

Découvrez le Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires et sa pédagogie innovatrice.
Participez à une discussion sur la possibilité pour les étudiants de devenir leaders actifs et autonomes de leur éducation, du bac à la thèse.
Explorez leur potentiel de contribution à la recherche à travers le crowdsourcing et des jeux de découverte scientifique.
François Taddei présentera à cette occasion le projet du CRI de création d'un incubateur pour des projets éducatifs à Paris.

Cet événement fait partie de l'ASHOKA CHANGEMAKERS' WEEK qui accueille du 16 au 23 juin 2011 à Paris les entrepreneurs sociaux du monde entier.



François TADDEI interviendra également au cours de deux sessions du cycle "Devenir Acteur de changement" de l'Ashoka Changemakers' Campus :

- Mercredi 22 juin 2011 - 11:00 - 12:30 : Repensons nos modèles ! pour la session "Changeons de regard sur l'éducation" (session en anglais)

- Mercredi 22 juin 2011 - 14:30 - 16:15 : Construisons ensemble les solutions de demain ! pour la session "Universités X.0"


*François Taddei est directeur de recherche à l'Inserm (biologie des systèmes), spécialiste reconnu de l'évolution et militant des approches interdisciplinaires. Il participe également à différents groupes de travail sur l'avenir de la recherche et de l'éducation (« France 2025 », rapport OCDE...)

"From single neurons to complex pathways: a multi-scale approach of cognition" with Spécial Guest Stella de Bode (Univ California)


FDV Workshop on Neuro and Cognitive Sciences Wednesday
May 25th at the CRI 9h30 - 18h00

Curious about neurosciences or cognitive sciences ?

Don't hesitate to join us for this day of workshop around a multi-scale approach of cognition from single neurons manipulation to complex networks modelization !

We will discuss very diverse topics from the role of the cannabinoid receptor to modelization of language learning. You will discover how we can build complex neuronal networks in vitro or in silico, what is the critic role of astrocytes in our brain and many other things.

Moreover we have the pleasure and honour to welcome Stella de Bode from University of California, Los Angeles who will talk about "Post Cerebral Hemispherectomy: From Equipotentiality to Irreversible Lateralization of Language".

You may read the program of the day below and download the detailed program of the day with the abstract of the different presentations.

Looking forward discussing with many of you tomorrow !

WORKSHOP PROGRAM

9h30-10h15: Anne-Lise Gaffuri "Drosophila melanogaster: a model system to study neuronal GPCRs?"
Laboratoire de Neurobiologie, CNRS-UMR 7637, ESPCI-ParisTech. Zsolt Lenke

10h15-11h00: Delphine Ladarré : "Live imaging of type-1 cannabinoid receptor signaling at single neuron scale"
Laboratoire de Neurobiologie, CNRS-UMR 7637, ESPCI-ParisTech. Zsolt Lenke

coffee break

11h15-12h00: Romain Cazé LNC INSERM 960, Boris Gutkin
Intrinsic plasticity in non-linear dendrites gates pyramidal computation.

12h00-12h45: Jéréie Sibille "Astrocyte just a supportive cell for neurons or a new scale for neuronal integration?"
Rouach Nathalie (Collège de France) Holcman David (ENS)

lunch break

13h45-14h30: Maéva Vignes "In vitro reconstruction of neuronal networks and applications to study neurodegenerative diseases."
Curie's Institute - Jean-Louis Viovy and Bernard Brugg

14h30-15h15: Alexandre Grémiaux "Neural encoding of sex-pheromone in moth olfactory brain: from data analysis to modelling"
INRA, Jean-Pierre Rospars and INRIA Dominique Martinez

coffee break

15h30-16h15: Mélanie Strauss "States of consciousness in sleep."

16h15-17h15: SPECIAL GUEST Stella de Bode (University of California, Los Angeles)
"Post Cerebral Hemispherectomy: From Equipotentiality to Irreversible Lateralization of Language."

17h15-18h00: Luc Boruta : "Learning phonemes in parallel universes."
ALPAGE (Univ. Paris 7 & INRIA), LSCP (EHESS, ENS & CNRS)

The CRI has the pleasure to invite you to an "Evening with... Faisal Aldaye (Harvard)" on Friday, May 6th at 17:30



Location :
in Seminar Room 2006 - 2nd Floor
Centre de Recherches Interdisciplinaires
Faculté de Médecine Paris Descartes
24 rue du Faubourg Saint Jacques - 75014 Paris

Some background on our guest:

In 2008, Faisal Aldaye became a research fellow with Professor Pamela Silver at the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, where he is applying the principles of DNA nanotechnology to solve problems in a practical way.

He is also a member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. He received his B.Sc. in Chemistry and his Ph.D. in DNA nanotechnology from McGill University.

His achievements have been recognized with numerous awards, including the IUPAC Prize for Young Chemists and the Governor General's Gold Medal.
He currently holds an NSERC Doctoral award, given to researchers who have demonstrated superior competence and outstanding productivity.

List of Faisal Aldaye publications

The session will be followed by a buffet with wine, cheese etc and open discussion.

On 11/04/2011, we are happy to welcome Katie Salen , a game designer, animator, and design educator. She has taught at MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT), the University of Texas at Austin, Parsons School of Design, New York University, etc...

Katie Salen is the Executive Director of Institute of Play, which promotes game design as a non-traditional educational tool. In 2009, she helped launch Quest 2 Learn (Q2L), a new public school in Manhattan, New York City, for which she is the Executive Director of Design.

Conference / discussion with Katie Salen
Monday 11th April - 17h30 - 20h00
CRI - room 2006

We will discuss together how games can change the way we think about education and how games could be implemented in our curriculums at CRI and in all the educational activities we're involved in as teachers, students or volunteers.

More information :
Wikipedia :
Institute of Play
Quest 2 Learn
New York Times article (Sept 2010)

Next week the CRI will host two special guests, Ron Milo (Weizmann Institute) and Drew Andy (Stanford University). To this occasion, we have invited each of them to animate an informal evening with the CRI students and mentors.

Wednesday March 23rd, 18:00: Ron Milo
Friday March 25th, 18:00: Drew Andy

Both sessions will follow with wine, cheese etc and open discussion.

Some background on our second guest Drew Endy (Stanford)



He was a junior fellow for 3 years and later an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. In September 2008, he moved to Palo Alto to become an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Silicon Valley's concentration of computer scientists and engineers, in addition to Stanford's broad focus on engineering as well as ethics and the humanities, are believed to be the main reason for his move according to press reports.[1] His wife Christina Smolke moved from the California Institute of Technology to Stanford in January 2009.

With Thomas Knight, Gerald Jay Sussman, and other researchers at MIT, Endy is working on synthetic biology and the engineering of standardized biological components, devices, and parts, collectively known as BioBricks.[2] Endy is one of several founders of iGEM and of the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, and invented an abstraction hierarchy for integrated genetic systems.

Endy is also known for his opposition to limited ownership and support of free access to genetic information. He has been one of the early promoters of open source biology, and helped start the Biobricks Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that will work to support open-source biology. He was also a co-founder of the now defunct Codon Devices, a biotechnology startup company that aimed to commercialize synthetic biology.

ENGINEERING BIOLOGY A Talk with Drew Endy on Edge

Next week the CRI will host two special guests, Ron Milo (Weizmann Institute) and Drew Andy (Stanford University). To this occasion, we have invited each of them to animate an informal evening with the CRI students and mentors.

Wednesday March 23rd, 18:00: Ron Milo
Friday March 25th, 18:00: Drew Andy

Both sessions will follow with wine, cheese etc and open discussion.

Some background on our first guest Ron Milo (Weizmann Institute)



Ron Milo/Research topics:

1. Plant and environmental systems biology

The lab aims to harness the tools and approaches employed in systems biology to bear on the grand challenges of sustainability. We study the efficiency of photosynthesis, trying to gain insight about the constraints that shape its properties and the limitations on the maximal productivity in plants and other photosynthetic organisms.

2. Optimality in Carbon Metabolism

Carbon metabolism uses a complex series of enzymatic steps to fix carbon dioxide into sugars and then convert them into metabolic precursors. Can we gain insight into the constraints that shape evolution's solution to this task? We use a novel computational approach to generate all possible paths between every two metabolites. We find that central metabolism is built as a minimal walk between the twelve precursor metabolites that form the basis for biomass. The approach is applied to design new carbon fixation pathways which are potential alternatives to the Calvin-Benson cycle.

3. BioNumbers database

This is a collaborative effort to establish a database of useful biological numbers such as the number of ribosomes in the cell, the volume of the nucleus, the rate of translation and transcription and many many other useful but too often hard to find biological numbers. You can learn more about it and check out the current version at the BioNumbers database.

4. Optimality models in biology

A methodology that helps us test our understand of biological systems. Here is a compilation of annotated examples I am compiling - Optimality in biology collection.

5. Methodologies in the Science of Sustainability

In this research we aim to thoroughly understand human ecological footprint and find new approaches and indicators that will help mitigate it. There is growing evidence that our dietary and consumption habits exert substantial pressure on Nature and its resources. We are developing a systems biology inspired approach to find metrics for measuring the true natural costs of consumption in terms of natural resources - (ECOST); we are in the advanced stages of launching GeoNumbers, a database of useful ecological and planetary science numbers, that will enable a better quantitative understanding of human impact on Nature.

The MedDebate club is happy to invite you to their first open debate about "Anxiety" on Tuesday, March 22nd 2011 at the CRI Paris (seminar room 2006), followed by a dinner at the CRI to carry on with the discussion ...

We will welcome three special guests :
- Annie Felten, medical doctor specialized in microbiology and acupuncturist,
- Alexandre Maciuk, pharmacist,
- Céline Besseling, clinical psychologist.

During this debate, the speakers will introduce themselves (professional background, everyday practice) and give their personal approach of anxiety. You will have the opportunity to ask them questions about the subjects you'd like to hear about during the debate.


About the CRI Med Debate club
Coordinators: Pamela Duboc, Jehanne Malek, Daniel Smiljovski

The goal of this club is to discuss and debate about the limits of the occidental approach to science and medical sciences. The members think that some practices are discredited in our countries for cultural, but not sufficiently validated, reasons. For example, acupuncture is very often practiced in the oriental cultures and can be effective for various conditions. However, western medical system continues to consider it as a minor medicine or even charlatanism.
It seems to the members that the West locked itself into values which it contributed to bring to the fore, such as the practice of the cartesian logic, the faith in a powerful science dissecting every mechanism that it does not understand... This frame of mind allowed for enormous progress, in particular in sciences. Nevertheless, it is limited by its habit of rejecting practices that it cannot explain, especially concerning medical practices.