Barcelona Collaboratorium

(Andrea)

Tarja and Andrea spent 2 weeks (April 3. - April 15.) at the Barcelona Collaboratorium for Modeling and Predictive Biology.
https://barcelonacollaboratorium.com

The collaboratorium has been founded in 2023 with the purpose of providing a space for researchers to discuss and collaborate on computational and theoretical modelling. For philosophers of science being interested in modeling practices the place gave us plenty of opportunities to discuss with researchers such as Jordi Garcia Ojalvo, James Sharpe, Alfonso Martinez Arias, and Ricard Solé about their various modeling approaches. Being located close to the sea side, yet hidden from touristic hot spots, the relaxed atmosphere let us delve into questions of how to construct and make use of models in gaining understanding of how the genotype determines dynamics at the phenotype level, the limitations of new technologies such as UMAP in handling the large amounts of data that have become available during the last years, why taking into account the dynamics of biological systems provides an alternative approach because it allows to model dynamic self-organizing behavior as observed in biofilms. Most of the scientists we talked to combine in their work theoretical modeling and experiments. Combining theoretical and empirical work is a challenge and requires some interdisciplinarity of the scientists themselves. A further remarkable observation is that all the different modeling activities, with all their diversity when it comes to methods, concepts, and assumptions address rather foundational questions such as development and dynamical organization. We have recorded a many discussions with the scientists, which wait to be transcribed and analyzed. The atmosphere and hospitality of the place is remarkable and let to new ideas about how progress with our research.