The
HARVEST Network Course "Systems Biology of Photosynthesis" was held in Brno, April 1-6, 2011. It has immediately preceeded the HARVEST International Workshop
Mechanisms of Non-photochemical Quenching (registration site) in Passau and bus transport, including lunch in
Český Krumlov, was provided.
The
program of the course can be found here.
The course consisted of three elements: an introduction to systems biology in general (Sun, April 3), scientific talks from researchers working on computational or mathematical models of photosynthesis or photosynthetic organisms (Mon, April 4), and an experimental part at the PSI factory in Drasov (Sat, April 2 and Tue, April 5) where we will measure fluorescence of fast PS kinetics (OJIP) and/or O2/CO2/bicarbonate concentrations in Arabidposis mutants and a cyanobacterial bioreactor culture, each cultivated under a diurnal light regime.
On the tutorial day, Sun April 3, a broad range of topics from basic introduction to modeling in biology to advanced mathematical concepts from the field of dynamic systems modeling has been lectured, including cut topics such as metabolic network analysis. In the afternoon hands-on modeling session has been organized based on different available tools (
CellDesigner,
Copasi,
SOSlib,
e-photosynthesis,
BIOCHAM,
PRISM).
The experimental part started with an introduction on Sat, April 2, afternoon at the PSI factory after the "Innovation Strategies" course. A time-course experiment over three diurnal cycles was finalized on Tue, April 5. On Tuesday afternoon the students tried to interpret the logged online data and the manually acquired data in terms of existing mathematical models.
