Information Processing Networks In Living Cells

John Tyson, University Distinguished Professor of Molecular Cell Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

An 'information processing system' (IPS) is a black box that takes an input signal ('information') and converts it into an output signal ('response'). The response is in some sense appropriate or valuable to a living agent, the user of the IPS. We are aware of three quite different IPSs: Digital Computers, Brains and Intracellular Signal Transduction Networks (STNs). These IPSs each have distinct and different properties that make them especially good at some sorts of computations and especially bad at others. I will describe some of the basic principles of information processing in STNs.

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