Title:
Bureaucracy, Cells and Corruption
Abstract: We often look at bureaucracies, such as our own universities, and think of them as overgrown and inefficient. But arguably the most elaborate bureaucracy in the known universe lies within each of us, whether student, professor or paper-pushing Vice President. This bureaucracy is the cell. The vast majority of genes and proteins within cells are effectively bureaucrats, regulating each other rather than building things. Regulation requires communication through an intricate network of intracellular signaling, which in turn extends beyond the cells as the chatter among cells that regulates tissues. I compare mathematical models of how populations and rules are regulated, examine how bureaucracy provides robustness to self-organized systems, and investigate the vulnerability of these complex systems to being corrupted. In particular, we have come to see cancer as corruption of the system of signaling that maintains tissue integrity in the face of uncertainty and disturbance, and reflect that back to society to think about how corruption, a violation of public trust, can be modeled.
Room: 203 TMCB