(Jakob Lindenmeyer) Life sciences and computation are two of the fastest growing research areas. To promote interdisciplinary discussions and to facilitate cross-fertilization of ideas among these areas, nine researchers from six different institutes of disciplines like Neuroinformatics, Biomechanics, Biochemistry, Plant Sciences, Network Engineering and Computational Sciences started this semester a new colloquium on Biology Inspired Computing (BIC). (1) The discussed topics range from evolutionary algorithms and neural networks to DNA-computing and statistical learning theory. Related topics are welcomed.

"We mainly plan to attract researchers from engineering- and natural sciences, but the colloquium is open for every student or professor who understands some English", says Marco Laumanns from the Computer Engineering and Networks Lab (TIK), who schedules the colloquium. The participants subscribed until now (2) cover disciplines like Scientific Computing, Molecular Biology, Mathematics, Geology, Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, Biotechnology and Operations Research. The language used for speeches and discussions is English.

The new interdisciplinary colloquium takes place every last Tuesday of the month and, depending on guest speakers, also on Tuesdays in between, like today. The detailed program is available on the web (3). The speakers always start at 17:15 in room HG E 41 in the ETH main building. The event lasts normally until 18:30 or 18:45, "depending on the intensiveness of the discussion, which follows a short introducing speech", says Marco Laumanns. The colloquium is open for everybody.

weiter