This summer, ELSI will organize a five-week workshop on the topic of Modeling Origins of Life, MOL for short, in collaboration with RIKEN. The organizers for this workshop are Nicholas Guttenberg, Piet Hut, and Nathaniel Virgo. We will focus on computer simulations of processes central to the Origins of Life, spanning a range of levels of realism, from physics inspired toy models to models incorporating more detailed chemical and biological aspects. The first two weeks will be held at ELSI itself, on the Tokyo Tech campus, July 21 - August 1. The next three weeks will be held in Kobe, near the K computer center of RIKEN, August 4-22.
This workshop is a follow-up of previous workshops at ELSI in January and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in March, which led to the formation of a MOL working group (see the MOL github pages at https://github.com/ModelingOriginsofLife with a white paper draft at https://github.com/ModelingOriginsofLife/March2014WhitePaper/wiki). In contrast to those previous events our summer workshop will be a working-workshop, not a talking-workshop, aimed at bringing together researchers to collaborate on producing research results and simulation frameworks during the workshop. These investigations will help to provide a set of common 'model-models' which everyone at the workshop should end up being familiar with. The first two weeks will be spent determining which models we will be using as core examples of Origins of Life phenomena and setting up collaborative investigation of those models. The next three weeks at RIKEN Kobe we will work on more detailed implementation and research, with the goal of working together to produce publishable results, as well as developing a common code-base for these core model-models that can be used and extended by the MOL community in the future.
For Part I which will take place at ELSI/Tokyo during July 21 through August 1, we have the following 19 participants. Unless specified, they will attend all 2 weeks.
Masashi Aono (ELSI) / attending part of the time
Nathanael Aubert (University of Tokyo) / part of the time
Aviv Bergman (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) / July 21-25
Daniel Biro (Albert Einstein College of Medicine)
Jim Cleaves (ELSI/IAS)
Albert Fahrenbach (Harvard University/ELSI) / part of the time
Yuka Fujii (ELSI) / part of the time
Nicholas Guttenberg (University of Oregon)
Piet Hut (ELSI/IAS)
Yu Komatsu (Tsukuba University) / July 27-29
Takashi Ikegami (University of Tokyo) / part of the time
Matthieu Laneuville (ELSI)
Jun Makino (ELSI/RIKEN) / part of the time
Matteo Monti (University of Bologna)
Koichi Nakamura (University of Tokyo) / July 21-25
Melissa Ilardo (NSCSSM)
Ximo Pechuan (Albert Einstein College of Medicine)
Hayato Saigo (Nagahama Institute of Bio-science and Technology) / July 21-22
Eugenio Simoncini (Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri - INAF) / July 21 to 25
Cameron Smith (Albert Einstein College of Medicine)
David Spivak (MIT) / July 21-25
Nathaniel Virgo (University of Tokyo)
For Part II which will take place at RIKEN/Kobe during August 4 through August 22, we have about 15 participants, 5 from Kobe and the following 10 from afar, all for three weeks except where indicated:
Daniel Biro (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) / August 4-6
George Cody (Carnegie Institution)
Nicholas Guttenberg (University of Oregon)
Piet Hut (ELSI/IAS)
Melissa Ilardo (NSCSSM) / August 4-19
Jun Makino (ELSI/RIKEN)
Matteo Monti (University of Bologna) / August 4-13
Norman Packard (ProtoLife, Inc) / August 4-15
Steen Rasmussen (University of Southern Denmark) / August 5-13
Nathaniel Virgo (University of Tokyo)
+ locals (yet to be listed)
For questions about the MOL workshop, please email: workshop-mol@ml.elsi.jp