The main purpose of the workshop is to review the current status of our understanding of intracellular organization and discuss possible modeling approaches to test ideas. To make  meaningful progress, we need to involve biologists , and experimental and theoretical  biophysicists to exchange  ideas and methodologies. 

During past years there has been an increasing interest in the modeling and numerical analysis of the structural and dynamical behaviour of  membranes. Although there has been  relevant advances in the understanding of the implications of the molecular details of lipid molecules and lipid mixtures in the collective behavior of membranes and there has been recent advances in the development of coarse grained models for lipid molecules to reach larger length and time scales, there is still a lack of  numerical studies which focus on the membrane role in   intra-cellular processes.

We aim at bringing together specialists in numerical studies of membranes  and experimentalists and theorists working in intracellular  organelle  studies. We aim at expanding the interests and expertise of computer simulators into this new area. 

Specifically, we expect that this initiative will  motivate researchers modeling membrane protein interactions and membrane dynamics to focus on extending, generalizing and applying their techniques to intracellular processes,  an area in which there has been significant experimental advances in recent years and which require a more fundamental understanding.

The main purpose of the workshop is to review the current status of our understanding of intracellular organization and discuss possible modeling approaches to test ideas. To make  meaningful progress, we need to involve biologists , and experimental and theoretical  biophysicists to exchange  ideas and methodologies. 
During past years there has been an increasing interest in the modeling and numerical analysis of the structural and dynamical behaviour of  membranes. Although there has been  relevant advances in the understanding of the implications of the molecular details of lipid molecules and lipid mixtures in the collective behavior of membranes and there has been recent advances in the development of coarse grained models for lipid molecules to reach larger length and time scales, there is still a lack of  numerical studies which focus on the membrane role in   intra-cellular processes.We aim at bringing together specialists in numerical studies of membranes  and experimentalists and theorists working in intracellular  organelle  studies. We aim at expanding the interests and expertise of computer simulators into this new area. 
Specifically, we expect that this initiative will  motivate researchers modeling membrane protein interactions and membrane dynamics to focus on extending, generalizing and applying their techniques to intracellular processes,  an area in which there has been significant experimental advances in recent years and which require a more fundamental understanding.

The organelles of a biological cell  have membranes with highly curved edges and tubes, as  seen in the Endoplasmic reticulum, the Golgi  and the inner membrane of mitochondria[1].  The compartmentalized functionality of cell organelles distinguishes an eukaryotic cell from the prokaryotes.  These membrane bound regions  have highly conserved, characteristic, morphological organization, which are believed to be linked to their functionality.  For instance, the sheet like Endoplasmic Reticulum(ER) is the center for lipid and protein synthesis while the double membrane cristae shaped mitochondrion caters to the energy needs of the cell by synthesizing ATP. There are also other organelles with wide array of complex shapes and functionality dotting the interior of the cell.  These isolated compartments, have a hierarchical     architecture and hence depends on each other for their functioning.  It is well known that  organelles like ER and Golgi can spontaneously organize after cell division.  The central question thus is, what provides the template , if any, for  the organization of these  compartments ? 

The most striking feature of the organelles is the occurrence of highly curved membrane regions.  The standard Helfrich model[2] for membranes, based on mean curvature energy, cannot explain the stability of such highly curved structures.  Understanding the stability of such regions is there for  an important aspect.   Only recently it has been realized, that macromolecules  which  constitute and decorate the membrane surface strongly influence the morphology of the membrane. For instance,  proteins from the dynamin superfamily  are known to pull out membrane tubes and oligomerize into a helical coat along the tube[3]. The BAR domain containing proteins in general can  induce a wide spectrum of membrane shapes ranging from protrusions to invaginations depending on the geometry and interaction strength of the BAR domain [4-7].  On the other hand, tubulation has also  been observed,  ``in vitro'',certain in self assembled systems of pure lipids[8], throwing open the roles played by lipids and proteins for investigation.  

Another important fact is that the organelles interact with each other by material exchange, through  the membrane mediated exo and endocytotic processes. These externally driven vesicular transport, at a membrane surface, continuously remodels the surface and constitutes an active force. It is likely that the complex morphologies of cell organelles, which cannot be stabilized in the equilibrium framework of membrane physics, are dynamically stable structures .

   The steady state nature of cell organelles is well demonstrated in the ER-Golgi secretory pathway. Mitotic inhibition preceding Golgi disassembly and the observed similarity in the size of fragmented and transport vesicles highlights the relation between vesicular transport and Golgi organization. Further observations of Golgi disassembly with inhibition of vesicular traffic by, direct and indirect techniques like, traffic inhibition by addition of Brefeldin A [9],  depletion of ATP[10,11], removal of  coat protein COPI[12] in the ER, drug induced disruption of microtubules[9,13,14], depletion of PC lipids[15], etc. adds support to the dynamical stability of Golgi architecture.