Systems Biology
The goal of modern systems biology is to describe and understand the operation of complex biological systems and ultimately to develop predictive models of human disease. “Systems biology” encompasses many different approaches, including the generation and analysis of large scale gene, protein and metabolite datasets; computer modeling of disease or organ system physiology; and the use of complex human cell systems themselves (e.g BioMAP technology) to interpret and predict the biological activities of drugs and gene targets.

Systems biology and drug discovery
”Systems biology” approaches offer the potential to improve decision making in pharmaceutical drug development by accelerating hypothesis-driven biology, the selection and validation of drug targets and lead compounds, and identification of surrogate markers for clinical studies. Complex cell systems technologies, such as BioMAP, integrate a broad range of disease-relevant human biology into the drug discovery process, informing target and compound validation, lead optimization, and clinical indication selection. For further reading, see Butcher EC, Berg EL, Kunkel EJ. Systems Biology in Drug Discovery (below).

Books & Articles

Aderem A. Systems biology: its practice and challenges. Cell, 2005, 121:511-3.

Butcher EC, Berg EL, Kunkel EJ. Systems biology in drug discovery. [pdf]
Nature Biotechnology, 2004, 22:1253-9.

Christopher R, Dhiman A, Fox J, Gendelman R, Haberitcher T, Kagle D, Spizz G, Khalil IG, Hill C.  Data-driven computer simulation of human cancer cell.  Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2004, 1020:132-53.

Davidson EH, Rast JP, Oliveri P, Ransick A, Calestani C, Yuh CH, Minokawa T, Amore G, Hinman V, Arenas-Mena C, Otim O, Brown CT, Livi CB, Lee PY, Revilla R, Rust AG, Pan Z, Schilstra MJ, Clarke PJ, Arnone MI, Rowen L, Cameron RA, McClay DR, Hood L, Bolouri H. A genomic regulatory network for development. Science, 2002, 295:1669-78.

Drug Discovery, A History. Walter Sneader, 2005, John Wiley and Sons.

Foundations of Systems Biology. Hiraoki Kitano, ed., 2001, The MIT Press.

[pdf of the first chapters]

Hood L, Heath JR, Phelps ME, Lin B. Systems biology and new technologies enable predictive and preventative medicine. Science, 2004, 306:640-3.

Huang S. Back to the biology in systems biology: what can we learn from biomolecular networks? Briefings in Functional Genomics & Proteomics, 2004, 2:279-97.

Ideker T, Lauffenburger D. Building with a scaffold: emerging strategies for high- to low-level cellular modeling. Trends in Biotechnology, 2003, 21:255-62.

Janes KA, Lauffenburger DA. A biological approach to computational models of proteomic networks. Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, 2006, 10:73-80.

Kitano H. Systems biology: a brief overview. Science, 2002, 295:1662-4.

Nicholson JK, Wilson ID. Opinion: understanding 'global' systems biology: metabonomics and the continuum of metabolism. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 2003, 2:668-76.

Thomas CE, Ganji G. Integration of genomic and metabonomic data in systems biology--are we 'there' yet? Current Opinion in Drug Discovery and Development, 2006, 9:92-100.

van der Greef J, McBurney RN. Innovation: Rescuing drug discovery: in vivo systems pathology and systems pharmacology. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 2005, 4:961-7.

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