Date: 2005.5.13 (Fri) 10:30-11:45
Place: General Research Building, Room 663
Speaker: Wataru Iwasaki
Title: Bottom-up Approaches for Understanding Biological Networks
Keywords: Bioinformatics, System biology

Affiliation: Department of Computational Biology,
Graduate School of Frontier Sciences
Position: Graduate Student
Adviser: Toshihsa Takagi, Takagi Laboratory
Disciplines: Computational Biology

Bibliography: Wataru Iwasaki, Bottom-up Approaches for Understanding Biological Networks, Human Science Integration Seminar Abstracts, No. 3, pp. 1, 2005.
(Please use this bibliography when you cite this abstract.)

Abstract:
In this review, three challenges for understanding biological systems with bottom-up approaches is presented.

1. From Protein Interaction Network to Mammalian Cell Function
Genetic information of each organism is carried on its DNAs as genes. These genes are transcribed and translated to proteins, so that networks of the proteins are the bases of the life. Hence, it should be a reasonable expectation that we can recognize the life more deeply by simulating the protein networks in a cell.

2. From Neural Network to Nematode Worm behavior
Behaviors of many animals are controlled by their neural networks. Thus, it is worthy to analyze the networks in order to understand animals, including us. There are some notable reports about analyses of neural networks of simpler organisms.

3. From Cell-Cell Interaction Network to Fruit Fly Development
Along the development of multicellular organisms, a fertilized egg divides and differentiates to build a complex structure: an adult. Cells communicate one another to make precise patterns during this process. For this reason, simulations of cell-cell interaction networks should be important to understand biology of the multicellular organisms.

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