About the Conference

Biological membranes play a fundamental role in the complex reactions which take place in cells of living organisms. The importance of this role has been considered in two different types of formalisms recently introduced. Membrane systems were introduced as a class of distributed parallel computing devices inspired by the observation that any biological system is a complex hierarchical structure, with a flow of materials and information that underlies their functioning. The modeling and the analysis of biological systems has also attracted the interest of the process algebra research community. Thus the notions of membranes and compartments have been explicitly represented in a family of calculi, such as Ambients and Brane Calculi. A cross fertilization of the two research areas has recently started. A deeper investigation of the relations between these related formalisms is interesting, as it is important to understand the similarities and the differences.

The main aim of the workshop is to bring together researchers working in membrane computing, in biologically inspired process calculi (ambients, brane calculi, etc.) and in other related fields to present recent results and to discuss new ideas concerning such formalisms, their properties and relationships. Original research papers (including significant work-in-progress) on the membrane systems or biologically inspired process calculi are sought. Papers on the relationship between membrane systems and biologically inspired process calculi are particularly welcome. Related formal approaches in which cell compartments play an important role are also within the scope of the workshop. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): * Biologically inspired models and calculi; * Biologically inspired systems and their applications; * Analysis of properties of biologically inspired models and languages; * Theoretical links and comparison between different models/systems.

*** PROGRAM COMMITTEE ***

• Joern Behre Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, DE
• Luca Cardelli, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK
• Matteo Cavaliere, CSIC-CNB, Madrid, Spain
• Gabriel Ciobanu, ICS, Romanian Academy, Iasi, RO (co-chair)
• Federica Ciocchetta, CoSBi, Trento, Italy
• Flavio Corradini, University of Camerino, Italy
• Erzsebet Csuhaj-Varju, CARI, Hungarian Academy, Budapest, HU
• Erik de Vink, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, NL
• Marian Gheorghe, University of Sheffield, UK
• Jean-Louis Giavitto, University of Evry, France
• Thomas Hinze, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, DE
• Maciej Koutny, Newcastle University, UK (co-chair)
• Paolo Milazzo, University of Pisa, Italy
• Angelo Troina, University of Torino, Italy
• Claudio Zandron, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
• Gianluigi Zavattaro, University of Bologna, Italy

Conference Dates