Information Processing, Noise, and Adaptation in Living Systems

The main goal of the conference was to bring together different communities interested in the same broad questions on how living systems process information from the environment and consequently respond to it. The presence of renowned researchers from various fields, from engineering to statistical physics and biology, has been instrumental to successfully reach the expected aim. In particular, we had the colloquium talk by Yuhai Tu, one of the most known scientists in the field of information processing and biophysics, and a keynote talk by Andre Levchenko, director of the System Biology Center at Yale University, and several speakers from the USA (Prof. Ilya Nemenman, Prof. Andreas Hilfinger, Prof. Andrew Mugler, Prof. Matthieu Louis, just to mention a few). Despite the multitude of approaches that have been presented and the unavoidable modulations of the scientific language employed, each one of the talks was focused on a set of questions common to the entire audience. This made the workshop particularly interesting in its wholeness, with no over-specific or out-of-focus sessions. The feedback we received from the community were extremely positive about the possibility to follow every scientific session with interest, most importantly leaving open the possibility to be surprised by unknown methods – coming from different areas of science – to tackle similar problems.

We also left some open time slots to favor discussions among members of those communities involved. Indeed, discussions were fruitful and frequent so that more time dedicated to them would have been useful, according to several participants. Although we were not able to arrange additional slots for this scope, this feedback clearly suggests that the goal of the workshop has been reached, encouraging interdisciplinary discussions and collaborations on its subject. This lively and interactive environment also helped young scientists to know the community and meet more experienced researchers. We decided to select for posters mainly PhD students and young postdocs, so that they had plenty of time for detailed scientific discussions.

Overall, the workshop resulted in a stimulating environment where multiple communities interacted and exchanged ideas, in the spirit of the original scope of the event. Numerous and various approaches have been presented to similar questions, widening the perspective of experienced scientists and letting younger ones to know the field in a broader sense.