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SUMMARY:Fundamental limits on the suppression of molecular fluctuations - 
 Dr Ioannis Lestas (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20100628T110000Z
DTEND:20100628T120000Z
UID:TALK25360@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Ioannis Lestas
DESCRIPTION:The derivation of hard performance bounds in the presence of n
 oisy feedback has been extensively addressed by control theorists over the
  last century\, with many results going back to the early work of Wiener\,
  Bode and Kalman. In a biochemical reaction\nnetwork\, however\, where the
  noise is associated with the spontaneous births and deaths of individual 
 molecules\, many of the more conventional methodologies come to a halt\, a
 nd need to be appropriately refined and extended. The approach in this tal
 k is to address such complications by quantifying the way these spontaneou
 s fluctuations restrict the ability to transmit information reliably\, i.e
 . they lead to communication channels with finite capacity in the sense of
  Shannon\, which can be explicitly calculated. We show that such restricti
 ons in information transmission fundamentally limit the ability to suppres
 s fluctuations in molecular concentrations\, thus leading to hard bounds f
 or noise suppression that hold for _arbitrary_ feedback policies. The limi
 ts derived challenge conventional beliefs about biochemical accuracy\, and
  show how an interface between control and information theory can be used 
 to rigorously analyze poorly characterized biological systems.\n\nParts of
  the results that will be presented are in press for publication in _Natur
 e_ as a full research article.\n
LOCATION:Cambridge University Engineering Department\, Oatley meeting room
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