SIGNET

Cell signalling is at the frontier of investigation of cells, tissues and organisms, both in the animal and plant kingdoms. The study of cell signalling is becoming the cornerstone in understanding how cells and cell populations perceive and interact with the external world. Importantly, in all natural systems, cell signaling pathways interact with one another to form networks, both within and between cells, that can behave in complex and unexpected ways. Our understanding of cell signalling is hindered by this inherent complexity, and future analyses of cell signaling networks will require a synergistic combination of experimental and theoretical approaches including the development and analysis of simulations and models. A Cell Signalling Network will bring together a number of internationally renowned researchers from biology and the mathematical sciences. This group activity will enhance the development of innovative techniques that could not be achieved in isolation. A truly interdisciplinary network devoted to the study of cell signalling will engage life scientists and mathematicians in developing new approaches and methodologies to improve our understanding of cell signalling in a variety of contexts, including normal development, wound healing, and disease.

Cell signalling underlies and coordinates a wide range of individual and collective cellular behaviors. Understanding how cells achieve reliable and spatio-temporally organised signalling in noisy biochemical environments is of central importance in cell biology and biomedicine. The SIGNET Network will bring together mathematicians and cell biologists with the aim of developing novel interdisciplinary methodologies for exploring complex signalling networks across the whole spectrum of model organisms (prokaryotes, plants and animals). A range of focused workshops will be organised to provide a forum for presenting and discussing both successful case studies and open problems in cell signalling. To engage a wide range of participants, these will take the form of free-standing meetings and focused sessions embedded in larger biological and modelling meetings. Three overlapping areas will form the initial focus: signal transduction, community signalling and plant signalling. An additional output will be the development of a web-based resource to initiate and sustain communication within the cell signalling community. Databases of models, techniques, case studies and interests/skills will also be utilised, helping to ensure that emerging methodologies and technologies are made available to as wide a community as possible.