Collectivity in living systems: emergence, function, and evolution

Overview

This conference will take place at EMBL Heidelberg, with the option to attend virtually.

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Symposium overview

Many of life’s most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among its building blocks. The initiation of a heartbeat, the formation of bird flocks or the appearance of several pathologies can be explained with surprising accuracy through simple and universal principles arising from the interactions of the microscopic constituents of the system.

Understanding how collective behaviour propagates across levels in biological systems – from cells, tissues, organs, organisms to animal groups – becomes, in consequence, a key and pressing issue lying at the core of the understanding of living systems.

This symposium aims to cover the common principles underlying the emergence of collective properties across biological systems. We will focus on the traits entailed by collective behaviour, including coordination, cooperation, emergence, interaction, and decision-making.

We will discuss those traits in a plethora of biological systems, from bacterial biofilms, cytoskeletal elements, cell migration, tissue and organ formation, disease models, animal behaviour and evolution, both at the theoretical and empirical level.

Speakers

Keynote speakers

Iain D. Couzin

Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

Germany

Prisca Liberali

Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research

Switzerland

Speakers

Pawel Burkhardt

University of Bergen

Norway

Helen Byrne 

University of Oxford

UK

Elena Casacuberta

CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Spain

Serena Ding

Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

Germany

Deborah Gordon

Stanford University

USA

Isabella Graf

EMBL Heidelberg

Germany

Susanna Manrubia

Spanish National Centre for Biotechnology (CSIC)

Spain

Antónia Monteiro

National University of Singapore

Singapore

Daniel R. Amor

École Normale Supérieure

France

William C. Ratcliff

Georgia Institute of Technology

USA

Alan Rodrigues

The Rockefeller University

USA

Julia Schwartzman

University of Southern California

USA

Tatsuo Shibata

RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research

Japan

Ricard Solé

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Spain

Gurol Suel

University of California, San Diego

USA

Gašper Tkačik

IST Austria

Austria

Hyun Youk

University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School

USA

Scientific organisers

Tomás Alarcón

Centre de Recerca Matemàtica (CRM), Barcelona

Spain

Bernat Corominas-Murtra

University of Graz

Austria

Jordi van Gestel

EMBL Heidelberg

Germany

Nicoletta Petridou

EMBL Heidelberg

Germany

Allyson Sgro

HHMI

USA

Sponsors

Sponsorship opportunities

We offer a variety of event sponsoring possibilities, with the flexibility to select a set sponsorship package or combine individual sponsorship options to suit your event budget. Discounts are available for companies sponsoring multiple events at EMBL Heidelberg. View other conferences, or contact sponsorship@embl.de for further information.

If you are interested in becoming a media partner of this event, please visit our media partnerships webpage.

About

EMBO | EMBL Symposia promote scientific communication and collaboration in the European research area. They provide scientists with a platform to discuss and exchange ideas on forward-looking topics and new developments in the life sciences.

Topics emphasise upcoming developments and the interdisciplinary nature of related fields. Jointly funded and organised by EMBO and EMBL – and complementary to their respective courses, workshops, and conference programmes – the symposia promote scientific communication and collaboration.

All symposia are held in the EMBL Advanced Training Centre (ATC) in Heidelberg, Germany, or virtually.