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Computational Biology
Computational biology is a fairly recent discipline which comprises a very broad expertise, from health records and privacy management to research data analysis and repositories. The discipline of computational biology is mainly used in the ICBP centers towards two main goals: research data repository and research data analysis.
Informational Technology/Computational Biology deals with the development of tools, languages and algorithms that can purposefully integrate the available information for building models of cancer processes at different levels of organization. These models are based on the available data and are expected to contain a predictive value that can direct the nature of further experiments. Developing a virtual tumor, a discrete Pathway Logic model that manages the concentrations of experimentally measured states (e.g., proteins, metabolites, cellular structures), a set of networks to predict cancer progression and initiation and a therapeutic predictive model based on DNA repair status of patients, are some of the various models that are currently being developed by different ICBP groups.
The key in using Computational Biology in Cancer Research is to handle complex biological processes and describe them using mathematics. The scheme below illustrates this concept.
scheme modified and displayed with the permission of the author, Joyce Macabea, Ph.D., Molecular Sciences Institute, Berkeley CA.
section maintained by J.Jourquin
