Tutorials

The registration fee to CIBB 2009 includes the tutorials.



Tutorial # 1   
Prof. Santo Motta
and
Dr.  Francesco Pappalardo

Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science - University of Catania - Italy

Emails: motta@dmi.unict.it

            francesco@dmi.unict.it



Title:
ImmunoGrid Simulator


ImmunoGrid is a project funded by the European Union which has established an infrastructure for the simulation of the immune system that integrates processes at  molecular,  cellular  and  organ  levels.  The  key  aim  of  Immunogrid  is  to implement a virtual human immune system using grid technologies. The goal is to simulate immune processes at natural scale and provide bioinformatics tools for  applications  in  clinical  immunology  and  for  the  design  of  vaccines  and  immunotherapies. The  aim  of  the  tutorial  is  the  presentation  of  the  contents  and  the  strategies  of the  ImmunoGrid  simulator  (hereafter  referred  as  the  simulator)  in  its  final version,  providing  information on the  use  of  the  simulator for educational/ research  purposes. It  will  be  presented  test-bed  cases  that  will demonstrate  the  ability  for  a  biomedical/bioinformatics  user  to  concretely  use the  power  of  the  grid  without  being  a  Grid  expert.  Finally  the  audience  will  be able to access the simulator for practical use and real testing.  The  general  goal  of  the  simulator  is  the  use  of  mathematical  and  computer models  in  immunology,  applying  the  resulting  simulations  to  the  design  and development  of  effective  immune  system  related  therapies  and  vaccines  in humans. The message the tutorial wish to transmit is that using models we can achieve better therapies and vaccines against cancers, viruses and auto-immune diseases, we can do it faster and we can identify better vaccination scheduling.
The simulator is accessible from www.immunogrid.eu

Santo Motta's Bio

Santo Motta was born in Rome in 1946. He obtained a "Laurea" in Physics at the University of Catania (1970) and its M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics at the University of London, Queen Mary College (1971). Actually  he  is  associate  professor  of  Mathematical  Physics  at  the  Faculty  of Pharmacy of the University of Catania and he is member of the Dept. of Maths & Computer  Science  of  the  University  of  Catania.  Presently  he  is  interested  in computational models of the cancer-immune system competition induced by an in vivo tested immunoprevenction vaccine. Its  present  scientific  interests  are  BioMaths,  BioComputing  and  BioInformatics, Immunomics.  Previously he was interested in numerical methods for transport equation, Non linear  waves  in  classic  and  relativistic  fluid-dynamics,  General  Relativity  and Cosmology, Solar Physics. Up to now, Santo Motta published more than 80 reviewed research papers and he is member of editorial board and reviewer of several international journals.

Francesco Pappalardo's Bio

Francesco Pappalardo earned his master and PhD. degree from University of Catania,  in  2000  and  2004  respectively.  Actually  he  is  holding  a  postdoctoral fellow and he is temporarily assigned to the professorship of Mathematics at the University of Catania.  From  2001  to  2004  he  did  research  in  computer  operating  system  security.  In 2008  he  was  visiting  scholar  at  Dana-Farber  Cancer  Institute  in  Boston  (USA), while  in  2006  he  visited  the  Molecular  Immunogenetics  Labs,  IMGT  in Montpellier (France).  His  major  research  areas  are  on  modeling  human  and  mouse  immune  system responses involved in several pathologies, including viral infections, tumors, and atherosclerosis.  This  effort  leaded  and  actually  leads  to  both  a  better understanding  of  the  immune  system,  and  to  the  application  of  these  modeling approaches to vaccine research. Up  to  now,  Francesco  Pappalardo  published  more  than  40  reviewed  research papers and is editor of journals and reviewer for major journals and conferences in the area of computer science and computational biology.
 



Tutorial # 2
   

Prof. Fioravante Patrone

Dipartimento di Ingegneria della Produzione,Termoenergetica e
Modelli Matematici
University of Genova - Italy

Email:
patrone@diptem.unige.it

Title:
Basics of Game Theory for Bioinformatics

The motivation for this tutorial has to be found in the increasing
number of contributions, to the fields of interest for the CIBB  conference, which make use of game-theoretical tools. Aim of the tutorial is to introduce the basics of game theory, with a specific focus on a couple of topics that have been recently used: (a) cooperative games, focusing on the Shapley value and on the  effects of augmenting their structure via a communication network, seeing for example how solutions (in particular the Shapley value) get being modified by the communication structure; (b) evolutionary stable strategies and their use in  non-cooperative games, with a comparison with the classical idea of Nash equilibrium as a solution for (non-cooperative) games in strategic form.

Fioravante Patrone's Bio
Fioravante Patrone, full professor of Game Theory at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Genoa (Italy), is author of more than fifty publications in mathematical analysis and game theory. His recent research interests are focused on applications of game theory in different fields: natural resources, medicine, biochemistry and industrial organization, with international collaborations with the World Bank, the Universities of Pretoria, Tilburg, Maastricht, Nice and Santiago de Compostela. He has been the promoter of the "Game  Practice" meetings that started in 1998 and has served as Director of the Interuniversity Centre for Game Theory and Applications for many years. Member of the editorial board of international journals, has recently published (in Italian) an introductory book for Game Theory.


Last updated 31March 2009