Cell Infection and Host Behaviour Modification: Bridging Biological Scales, Dr Maurício Vieira Kritz, LNCC Brasil
Dates: | 9 June 2014 |
Times: | 15:00 - 16:00 |
What is it: | Seminar |
Organiser: | Faculty of Life Sciences |
Who is it for: | University staff |
Speaker: | Maurício Vieira Kritz |
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Natural phenomena arise from collections of entities which, by interacting, change the traits we observe in them. Physical entities are "particles", "bodies" and fields. Physicists see the world through these spectacles. Biologists think about molecules, motifs, modules, organelles, processes, barely considering the precise localisation of any of them but guarding special attention to their relative positions and relations. That is, biologists see entities like "organisations", in a very specific sense. However, while it is straightforward to think in terms of particles, bodies and fields, it is not as easy to reason in terms of organisations, since organisations are generally associated with function and functions can only be recognised a posteriori with respect to interactions with nearby entities. I shall present a concept of organisation that is not attached to function but nevertheless represent biological entities. Enlightened by this concept, cell infection by viruses present several similarities with the modification of hosts behaviour by parasites and parasitoids, if we focus on regulatory and signalling processes.
Speaker
Maurício Vieira Kritz
Organisation: National Laboratory of Scientific Computing (LNCC) of Brazil
Travel and Contact Information
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Lecture Theatre
Michael Smith Building
Manchester