Expanding the NITMB community and driving collaboration at the Biological Systems that Learn workshop
- Feb 26
- 5 min read
Hear how attending the Biological Systems that Learn workshop is impacting workshop participants, the future of their research, and their engagement with the NITMB community
Over 100 participants gathered at the NSF-Simons National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology in early January for the NSF-Simons NITMB’s largest workshop to date: Biological Systems that Learn. Participants spent the week focused on discovering new core principles and mathematical tools/approaches shared across physical learning systems, biological learning systems, and neural networks that will inform deeper understanding and future discovery in all 3 fields. The increased number of participants allowed for numerous break-out discussion groups to cover a wide range of topics, from neuroscience to evolution, machine learning, dynamical systems, and more.
Inspiring Discussions
The Biological Systems that Learn provided ample time for both small group and whole group discussions exploring learning systems. Tsvi Tlusty, a Professor of Physics at the Ulsan National Institute for Science and Technology (UNIST), found that “several sessions were particularly inspiring. One example was the discussion about local rules and effective interactions coordinated by Murugan and Dufresne. Another one was the discussion of ‘function’ in biology, coordinated by Nachi Stern. It was useful to hear various perspectives on the notion of function, which is everything in engineering, nothing in physics, and unclear in biology.”
Another workshop participant, Peko Hosoi, Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, most enjoyed “Doug Durian and Martin Falk’s session on Overparameterization without overfitting. This is a question that has puzzled me for some time in the context of training classifiers; the conversation pushed me to think about the problem from new angles and I learned a lot from the other participants.”
For Chrisy Xiyu Du, an assistant professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, a favorite session “was the discussion session by Professor Bill Bialek on Neuroscience. I was very interested in his take on high dimensional optimization, where he discusses how in high dimensional optimization, even though some parameters seem to be useless, you still can’t take them out of the optimization. I have been thinking about optimization in a similar direction, so it was very good to hear other people thinking about the same problem in their systems.”
Paul François, Professor in Bioinformatics and Biophysics at the Université de Montréal, “really loved the small group discussion on Robustness and Variability. The group was relatively small (~15 people) which I think really helped for the interactions, and I think we went pretty deep and far in connecting dots between different topics, from sloppiness in biological models to homeostasis and universality classes in physics and biology, with very insightful comments from participants. This was extremely enjoyable.”
A particularly enjoyable discussion for Matheus Viana, a Senior Scientist at the Allen Institute for Cell Science, was “how rules at the cell scale can be learned to generate expected collective behavior at the tissue scale. Despite the difference in spatial scale, I like this topic because it is closely related to my own work. I am interested in how rules at the organelle level lead to emergent properties of single cells.”
In addition to driving engaging conversation, these discussion sessions facilitated networking between workshop participants, allowing them to meet with theorists and experimentalists from a variety of disciplines and form new connections and collaborations.
New Connections and Collaborations
Bringing together theorists and experimentalists from many different research areas helped to create new collaborations and connections that will support the NITMB’s mission to drive new discoveries through the integration of mathematics and biology. Professor Tlusty noted making new connections at the Biological Systems that Learn workshop that will hopefully lead to a new collaboration. Professor Du has also entered preliminary discussions on a new collaboration as a result of attending the workshop.
“I had very good discussions with Margaret Gardel and also Susanne Rafelski,” noted Professor François. “I also have Zoom discussions planned following that meeting, in particular with Andrea Liu. It is a bit too early to tell if collaborations will emerge from this, but for sure the discussions suggested that we have common interests. Generally speaking, I had many fantastic interactions. You can feel that a new community at the interface between machine learning, biology, physics, engineering, and maths is currently emerging, with the common goal of applying ‘learning’ concepts to new problems in natural sciences. It was extremely stimulating to be part of the discussion.”
These collaborations and connections formed at the workshop will also grow the NITMB community and the impact of NITMB’s mission on mathematical biology research.
Growing the NITMB Community
Many of the Biological Systems that Learn workshop participants, such as Professor Hosoi and Dr. Viana, noted that their experience at the workshop encouraged them to find ways to engage with the NITMB community further in the future. Professor Tlusty said “I was happy to discover that an institute for theory and mathematics in biology was established. This is a unique place that revives a long tradition of mathematical biology in Chicago. I believe that such an institute is exactly what is needed to develop new mathematical languages that can capture the extreme complexity and variety of life forms. I am very curious to see what comes out of this new effort, and especially how new mathematical ideas can be used in understanding life. This workshop demonstrated great potential in advancing this goal, and I hope to be part of the activity at the NITMB in the future.”
The Biological Systems that Learn workshop also served as Professor Du’s introduction to the NITMB. “I was not aware of NITMB’s existence before the workshop, so it was really great to learn about it. I am now thinking about applying for short visits and future workshops.” Similarly, Professor François shared enthusiasm about returning to the NITMB and participating in future workshops. “I am certainly looking forward to coming back to NITMB to explore future collaborations,” said François. “I actually would like to propose some workshops myself!”
The outcomes of the Biological Systems that Learn workshop demonstrates the necessity of bringing together researchers from a variety of disciplines to discuss questions in mathematics and biology. NITMB is excited to see the enthusiasm from the growing NITMB community following the workshop, as well as the impact conversations and collaborations started at the workshop will have on the mathematics and biology research communities. Researchers interested in joining the NITMB for an upcoming workshop can visit the ‘Programs’ page to discover all the workshop opportunities currently available.