Training in Systems Approaches for the Next Generation of Life Scientists and Medical Doctors
We describe the current challenges and scattered best practices of introducing the wider systems medicine topics into the medical education as well as possibilities for systems medicine training at the doctoral and lifelong levels. (Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics)
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Systems Medicine: Sketching the Landscape
To understand the meaning of the term Systems Medicine and to distinguish it from seemingly related other expressions currently in use, such as precision, personalized, -omics, or big data medicine, its underlying history and development into present time needs to be highlighted. Having this development in mind, it becomes evident that Systems Medicine is a genuine concept as well as a novel way of tackling the manifold complexity that occurs in nowadays clinical medicine—and not just a rebranding of what has previously been done in the past. So looking back it seems clear to many in the field that Systems Medicine h...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Taking Bioinformatics to Systems Medicine
Systems medicine promotes a range of approaches and strategies to study human health and disease at a systems level with the aim of improving the overall well-being of (healthy) individuals, and preventing, diagnosing, or curing disease. In this chapter we discuss how bioinformatics critically contributes to systems medicine. First, we explain the role of bioinformatics in the management and analysis of data. In particular we show the importance of publicly available biological and clinical repositories to support systems medicine studies. Second, we discuss how the integration and analysis of multiple types of omics data ...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Systems Medicine: The Future of Medical Genomics, Healthcare, and Wellness
Recent advances in genomics have led to the rapid and relatively inexpensive collection of patient molecular data including multiple types of omics data. The integration of these data with clinical measurements has the potential to impact on our understanding of the molecular basis of disease and on disease management. Systems medicine is an approach to understanding disease through an integration of large patient datasets. It offers the possibility for personalized strategies for healthcare through the development of a new taxonomy of disease. Advanced computing will be an important component in effectively implementing s...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Next-Generation Pathology
The field of pathology is rapidly transforming from a semiquantitative and empirical science toward a big data discipline. Large data sets from across multiple omics fields may now be extracted from a patient’s tissue sample. Tissue is, however, complex, heterogeneous, and prone to artifact. A reductionist view of tissue and disease progression, which does not take this complexity into account, may lead to single biomarkers failing in clinical trials. The integration of standardized multi-omics big data and the retention of valuable information on spatial heterogeneity are imperative to model complex disease mechanis...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Systems Medicine in Pharmaceutical Research and Development
The development of new drug therapies requires substantial and ever increasing investments from the pharmaceutical company. Ten years ago, the average time from early target identification and optimization until initial market authorization of a new drug compound took more than 10 years and involved costs in the order of one billion US dollars. Recent studies indicate even a significant growth of costs in the meanwhile, mainly driven by the increasing complexity of diseases addressed by pharmaceutical research. (Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics)
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Systems Medicine in Oncology: Signaling Network Modeling and New-Generation Decision-Support Systems
Two different perspectives are the main focus of this book chapter: (1) A perspective that looks to the future, with the goal of devising rational associations of targeted inhibitors against distinct altered signaling-network pathways. This goal implies a sufficiently in-depth molecular diagnosis of the personal cancer of a given patient. A sufficiently robust and extended dynamic modeling will suggest rational combinations of the abovementioned oncoprotein inhibitors. The work toward new selective drugs, in the field of medicinal chemistry, is very intensive. Rational associations of selective drug inhibitors will become ...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Neurological Diseases from a Systems Medicine Point of View
The difficulty to understand, diagnose, and treat neurological disorders stems from the great complexity of the central nervous system on different levels of physiological granularity. The individual components, their interactions, and dynamics involved in brain development and function can be represented as molecular, cellular, or functional networks, where diseases are perturbations of networks. These networks can become a useful research tool in investigating neurological disorders if they are properly tailored to reflect corresponding mechanisms. Here, we review approaches to construct networks specific for neurologica...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Systems Medicine and Infection
By using a systems-based approach, mathematical and computational techniques can be used to develop models that describe the important mechanisms involved in infectious diseases. An iterative approach to model development allows new discoveries to continually improve the model and ultimately increase the accuracy of predictions. (Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics)
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Systems Medicine for Lung Diseases: Phenotypes and Precision Medicine in Cancer, Infection, and Allergy
Lung diseases cause an enormous socioeconomic burden. Four of them are among the ten most important causes of deaths worldwide: Pneumonia has the highest death toll of all infectious diseases, lung cancer kills the most people of all malignant proliferative disorders, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) ranks third in mortality among the chronic noncommunicable diseases, and tuberculosis is still one of the most important chronic infectious diseases. Despite all efforts, for example, by the World Health Organization and clinical and experimental researchers, these diseases are still highly prevalent and harmful. T...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Third-Kind Encounters in Biomedicine: Immunology Meets Mathematics and Informatics to Become Quantitative and Predictive
The understanding of the immune response is right now at the center of biomedical research. There are growing expectations that immune-based interventions will in the midterm provide new, personalized, and targeted therapeutic options for many severe and highly prevalent diseases, from aggressive cancers to infectious and autoimmune diseases. To this end, immunology should surpass its current descriptive and phenomenological nature, and become quantitative, and thereby predictive. (Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics)
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Modeling and Simulation Tools: From Systems Biology to Systems Medicine
Modeling is an integral component of modern biology. In this chapter we look into the role of the model, as it pertains to Systems Medicine, and the software that is required to instantiate and run it. We do this by comparing the development, implementation, and characteristics of tools that have been developed to work with two divergent methodologies: Systems Biology and Pharmacometrics. From the Systems Biology perspective we consider the concept of “Software as a Medical Device” and what this may imply for the migration of research-oriented, simulation software into the domain of human health. (Source: Sprin...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Mathematical and Statistical Techniques for Systems Medicine: The Wnt Signaling Pathway as a Case Study
We present methods for the analysis of a single model, comprising applications of standard dynamical systems approaches such as nondimensionalization, steady state, asymptotic and sensitivity analysis, and more recent statistical and algebraic approaches to compare models with data. We present parameter estimation and model comparison techniques, focusing on Bayesian analysis and coplanarity via algebraic geometry. Our intention is that this (non-exhaustive) review may serve as a useful starting point for the analysis of models in systems medicine. (Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics)
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Anatomy and Physiology of Multiscale Modeling and Simulation in Systems Medicine
Systems medicine is the application of systems biology concepts, methods, and tools to medical research and practice. It aims to integrate data and knowledge from different disciplines into biomedical models and simulations for the understanding, prevention, cure, and management of complex diseases. Complex diseases arise from the interactions among disease-influencing factors across multiple levels of biological organization from the environment to molecules. To tackle the enormous challenges posed by complex diseases, we need a modeling and simulation framework capable of capturing and integrating information originating...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
Network-Assisted Disease Classification and Biomarker Discovery
Developing improved approaches for diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases is a major goal of biomedical research. Therefore, the discovery of biomarker signatures from high-throughput “omics” data is an active research topic in the field of bioinformatics and systems medicine. A major issue is the low reproducibility and the limited biological interpretability of candidate biomarker signatures identified from high-throughput data. This impedes the use of discovered biomarker signatures into clinical applications. Currently, much focus is placed on developing strategies to improve reproducibility and i...
Source: Springer protocols feed by Bioinformatics - December 21, 2015 Category: Bioinformatics Source Type: news
