8:30

Breakfast

9:00

Welcome

9:15

Keynote 1 Tarja Knuuttila (University of South Carolina) and Andrea Loettgers (University of Geneva)(Chair: Miles Macleod)
“Abstraction and model construction in systems and synthetic biology”

Session 1(Chair: Carol Cleland)

10:15

Leonardo Bich (Universidad de Chile) and Luisa Damiano (University of Messina)
“The Synthetic Method between Engineering and Science: A new paradigm for the scientific exploration of the frontiers of life?”

11:00

Coffee Break

11:30

Dominic Berry (University of Edinburgh)
“Why Phytobricks?: How synthetic biologists are engineering plants”

12:15

Melinda Fagan (University of Utah)
“Reprogramming and the Repressilator”

1:00

Lunch (on your own)

2:30

Keynote 2 Eberhard O. Voit (Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University) (Chair: Nancy Nersessian)
“Understanding Biological Systems through Mathematical Modeling”

Session 2 (Chair: Leonardo Bich)

3:30

Nicolae Morar (University of Oregon) and Brendan Bohannan(University of Oregon)
“Using Evolution to Engineer Microbiomes”

4:15

Coffee Break

4:45

Sune Holm (University of Copenhagen)
“The Machine Analogy in Synthetic Biology”

5:30

Daniel Brooks (Konrad Lorenz Institute)
“Nature as a Toolbox: A New Look at the Concept of Levels of Organization”

6:15

Adjourn

9:00

Breakfast

9:30

Keynote 3 William Wimsatt (University of Minnesota) (Chair: Sandra Mitchell)
“Fundamental Engineering Principles of Natural and Artifactual Design”

Session 3 (Chair: Agnes Bolinska)

10:30

Mazviita Chirimuuta (University of Pittsburgh)
“Crash Testing an Engineering Framework in Neuroscience: When Does the Idea of Robustness Break Down?”

11:15

Coffee Break

11:45

Mark A. Bedau (Reed College)
“Non-traditional engineering of desired weak emergent properties of synthetic cells”

12:30

Luis Favela (University of Central Florida)
“Crosscutting Biology and Engineering via Fractals

1:15

Lunch (on your own)

Session 4 (Chair: Mike Stuart)

2:30

Dominic Halsmer (Oral Roberts University)
“The Multifaceted Potential of Affordance-based Reverse Engineering in Biology”

3:15

Elihu Gerson (Tremont Research Institute) and Alok Srivastava (Tremont Research Institute)
“Reconciling Specialties of Engineering and Biology”

4:00

Coffee Break

4:30

Pablo Schyfter (University of Edinburgh)
“The epistemology of ‘good enough’: Pragmatism and engineering knowledge in synthetic biology”

5:15

Mieke Boon (University of Twente)
“An Engineering Paradigm: Whose paradigm?”

6:00

Adjourn