EvoSym:
Emergence and Evolution of Biological Symbol Systems

EvoSym is a collaborative European research project supported under the Complexity-NET 2009 pilot funding call, Interdisciplinary Challenges for Complexity Science. Complexity-NET is the European Network for the Coordination of Complexity Research and Training Activities

News

September 20, 2010: The application process for the PhD scholarships to work on the EvoSym project at DCU is now closed.
July 29, 2010: The closing date for applications for the PhD scholarships at DCU has been extended to 13th August 2010. See the the recruitment section below or the associated, print-friendly, flyer for details.
June 28, 2010: EvoSym is currently offering two postgraduate student scholarships, based at the Artificial Life Lab of the Rince Institute, Dublin City University. See the recruitment section below or the associated, print-friendly, flyer for details. Closing date for applications: 30th July 2010.
June 14, 2010: The Complexity-NET call consortium has confirmed funding for the EvoSym project. (The funding call attracted 117 initial Expressions of Interest, from which 28 consortia were invited to submit full proposals. Of these, 9 have now been awarded funding.)

Key Questions

EvoSym is investigating two key questions:

How do complex representational and communicative coding systems emerge, self-organise and evolve, from micro to macro levels, in the natural biosphere?
How can this biological understanding be applied to the artificial evolution of complex coding systems in computational and/or robotic systems?

Partners

Artificial Life Lab, Rince Institute, Dublin City University, Ireland.
Principal Investigator: Prof. Barry McMullin.
Bioinformatics Group, Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands.
Principal Investigator: Prof. Paulien Hogeweg.
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.
Principal Investigator: Prof. Luc Steels.

Workplan

The project applies methods and techniques of complexity science to understand the emergence and evolution of biological "symbol systems" (also called "biosemiotic systems"), such as genetic coding (DNA-protein), RNA editing, cell signalling, etc. It also investigates potential technological applications in distributed agent-based software and robotics. The research is structured into three major work packages:

WP1 builds on previous work in modelling prebiotic molecular evolution in spatially extended individual-based systems. It will specifically consider whether or how "RNA coding" could evolve in such an environment.
Lead partner: Bioinformatics Group, Universiteit Utrecht.
WP2 is a complementary investigation of the origin and evolution of evolvable coding and translation in purely computational systems - specifically "coreworlds" (e.g., tierra , nanopond etc.) and "artificial chemistries", which can model evolving software agents in networked computer systems.
Lead partner: Artificial Life Lab, Rince Institute.
WP3 bridges between the other two workpackages, to apply principles of language evolution in collective robotic systems to the emergence of complex (i.e., compositional and grammatical) languages in models of chemical communication among biological cells.
Lead partner: Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Schedule

EvoSym will formally commence with a kickoff meeting in November 2010, and will run for two years.

Recruitment

There are no positions currently open with the project.

Contact

If you have any questions on the EvoSym project, please contact:

Barry McMullin,
The Rince Institute,
Dublin City University,
Dublin 9,
IRELAND

Voice: +353-1-700-5432
Fax:   +353-1-700-5508
email: barry.mcmullin@dcu.ie

EvoSym: Emergence and Evolution of Biological Symbol Systems