Meeting report of the International Workshop on Quantitative Biology 2012: mesoscopic and microscopic worlds meet

Over the past decade or two biology has become increasingly quantitative and concepts from mathematical and physical sciences have in turn increasingly influenced biology (Knight, 2002; May, 2004; Endy, 2005; Chuang et al., 2010). As a result of these advances in quantitative biology, new biological phenomena at mesoscopic and microscopic scale have been unraveled and techniques to address long-standing fundamental questions have been developed. Yet quantitative biology as a field is reliant on concepts borrowed from engineering and physics and hence is critically dependent on close interaction between theoretical and experimental biologists. The report reviews the highlights of the interactive workshop, and proposes the long-term benefits of such small-scale cross-disciplinary workshops.