MORPHEX

the project ``Morphogenesis and gene regulatory networks in plants and animals: a complex systems modelling approach (MORPHEX)''. The project is an EU-funded project and is Collaboration with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Delegation Rhone Auvergne (CNRS) and other laboratories from France, Germany, Sweden and Norway. It is a multi-disciplinary research project in which groups from computer science, mathematics and developmental biology closely collaborate. The main objective of the project is to obtain via a modelling and simulation approach a better understanding of the structure and dynamics of metabolic pathways and gene regulatory networks involved in the morphogenesis of animals and plants. We will concentrate on the development of sponges / cnidarians (for example Nematostella vectensis) and on the organogenesis of carpel and anthers of a flowering plant. We will tackle the complexity involved in these processes by using concepts and tools arising from complex systems science. The following problems will be addressed: provide a general model allowing to describe the underlying complex systems at different hierarchical levels in the same formalism; provide tools to extract concrete models description from experimental data; provide a way to conduct in-silico experiments.