Research Approach: Systems Biology of the Heart
Prof. Denis Noble, Dr Alan Garny, Dr Gary Mirams, and Mrs Katherine Fletcher
We believe that bio-medical research can benefit greatly from the targeted combination of ‘reductionism’ and ‘integrationism’, in the same research setting, and that this systems approach is productive both for patient- or lab-based ‘wet’ research and computational ‘dry’ modelling. This approach has been inherent to physiological sciences for centuries where ‘engineering’ advances in tools and techniques guided break-through discoveries at increasingly finer spatial scales (think microscope or patch-clamp technique), while quantitative interpretation of data supported system(at)ic interpretation of results.
In the modern setting of increasingly narrow specialisation, this approach requires collaboration of individuals with a wide range of educational backgrounds, to drive model development (both ‘wet’ and ‘dry’) and their application to multi-level analysis of structure-function relations (see below for an illustration of currently active research projects in our team; see also ‘links’ page with reference to key external collaborators).
We are actively engaged in the EU Virtual Physiological Human initiative, both via contributions to targeted research projects such as preDiCT and euHeart, and via the associated Network of Excellence.
Recent papers:
- Kohl P, Crampin E, Quinn TA & Noble D. Systems biology: an approach. Nature Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics 2010/88:25–33 (DOI; cover).
- Kohl P & Noble D. Systems Biology and the Virtual Physiological Human. Nature Molecular Systems Biology 2009/292:1-6 (full text).
- Garny A, Noble D, Hunter PJ & Kohl P. Cellular open resource (COR): current status and future directions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 2009/367(1895):1885-1905 (DOI).
