Abstract

Abstract: Modelling activity is a process whose aim is to obtain a realistic description of a system. A number of different languages and tools have been developed to model biological systems, and most of them follow the same schema: the proposal of a means to explicitly list all the molecules and the reactions involved in the system. The aim of this seminar is to present a different approach through the introduction of a new language, BlenX. In order to get a better understanding of this language, I present a case study: the actin polymerization process. In the last part of the seminar I will focus on some problems of the BlenX language, highlighting its main drawbacks and presenting possible solutions.

Biography: Roberto Larcher attended the Faculty of Science at the University of Trento, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree (2004) and a Master’s degree (2006) in Computer Science. His thesis, “From BioAmbients to Beta-binders with compartment,” focused on comparing the two process algebras in order to underline the futures of the second one. In 2006-2007 he completed the Second level International Master’s in Computational and Systems Biology at the Microsoft Research – University of Trento Centre for Computational and Systems Biology.