David Harel, Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

Can we Computerize an Elephant? Some Thoughts on Reverse-Engineering Nature

The talk shows the way techniques from computer science and software engineering can be applied beneficially to research in the life sciences. We will discuss the idea of comprehensive and realistic modeling of biological systems, where we try to understand and analyze an entire system in detail, utilizing in the modeling effort all that is known about it.  I will address the motivation for such modeling and the philosophy underlying the approach, and the techniques for carrying it out. I'll also try to deal with the crucial question of when such models are to be deemed valid, or complete.
The examples I will present will be from among the biological modeling efforts my group has been involved in: T cell development in the thymus, lymph node behavior, organogenesis of the pancreas, fate determination in the reproductive system of C. elegans , and a generic cell model. The ultimate long-term "grand challenge" is to produce an interactive, dynamic, computerized model of an entire multi-cellular organism, such as the C. elegans nematode worm, which is complex, but well-defined in terms of anatomy and genetics. The challenge is to construct a full, true-to-all-known-facts, 4-dimensional, fully animated model of the development and behavior of this worm (or of a comparable multi-cellular animal), which is easily extendable as new biological facts are discovered.

Biosketch

David Harel has been at the Weizmann Institute of Science since 1980, serving as Department Head and then as Dean of the Faculty. He received his  PhD from MIT in 1978, and has spent time at IBM Yorktown Heights, and sabbaticals at Carnegie-Mellon University, Cornell University and the University of Edinburgh. He is the inventor of statecharts and co-inventor of live sequence charts, and co-designed Statemate, Rhapsody and the Play-Engine. Among his awards are the ACM Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award (1992), the Israel Prize (2004), the ACM Software System Award (2007), and three honorary degrees. He is a Fellow of the ACM, the IEEE and the AAAS, and is a member of the Academia Europaea.