COLLOQUIUM
             Computer Science Department, Boston University

Speaker: Professor Calin Belta
         Boston University, ENG

Date:  Wednesday, February 1
Time:  11:00
Place: Room MCS 135, 111 Cummington Street 
       (for directions, see www.cs.bu.edu/colloquium)

Title: Analysis of Genetic and Metabolic Networks

Abstract:

Bacteria continuously respond to environmental changes through a
complicated mechanism consisting of an interplay between metabolic
and genetic networks. Through hundreds of chemical reactions, the
metabolic network converts nutrients from the environment to
elements necessary for growth and survival of the cell. Most of
these chemical reactions are regulated by enzymes produced by a
genetic network. In turn, the expression of the genes from the
genetic network is regulated by its own products and metabolites
produced by the metabolic network.

In the first part of the talk, I will present some recent results
on genome scale metabolic analysis. I will first show how
essentiality of metabolites in E.coli can be predicted by a
combined approach of in silico large scale optimization and in
vivo survivability data for wild type and mutants. I will then
demonstrate how the simple application of a duality theorem from
convex optimization can be used to design minimal nutrient sets
for biomass production. I will also presents the main ideas
underlying an algorithm for design of minimal cut sets.

In the second part of the talk, I will focus on analysis and
design of genetic networks. I will first present a computationally
efficient method for analysis, which is based on a particular
approach to modeling, discrete abstractions, and formal analysis.
I will also give a brief overview of an ongoing project on
rational design of small synthetic genetic circuits.

Biography:

Calin Belta received B.S. and M.Sc. degrees in Control and
Computer Science from the Technical University of Iasi, before
earning his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the
University of Pennsylvania. He is currently an Assistant Professor
in the Department of Manufacturing Engineering at Boston
University. His research interests include planning and control
for formations of robots, hybrid systems, and bio-molecular
networks.

Calin Belta received an NSF CAREER award in 2005, a Fulbright
study award in 1997, and was the Valedictorian of his class in
1995. He received the best paper award at the Int. Conf. on
Systems Biology in 2004 and was a finalist for the ASME Design
Engineering Technical Conference best paper award in 2002 and for
the Anton Philips best student paper award at the IEEE Int. Conf.
on Robotics and Automation in 2001.

Host: Azer Bestavros