Title: Targeting and tinkering with interaction networks
Abstract: Complex systems are often networked, and biology is no exception. The follow-up experiments to the genome sequencing projects show that molecules in living things are also highly connected, which helps to explain how such great complexity can be achieved by a comparatively small set of molecules. Thus, the many thousands of biomolecular interactions that are now known represent a powerful dataset for interrogating all aspects of biology. Although there has traditionally been cynicism about the possibility of re-designing systems behaviour by tinkering with pathways and targeting interactions with small-molecules, much exciting recent research suggests that this is now possible. Other developments have helped this new area of study along. Importantly, the now widespread availability of technologies that have previously been predominantly in industry – such as high-throughput screening, medicinal chemistry or chemical databases – means that we are now better able to study and test how chemicals act on systems mechanistically. More often than not this means understanding the network of protein–protein, protein–gene and protein–chemical interactions that somehow mediate the reaction of a biological system to a foreign chemical. This Special Issue of FEBS Letters contains manuscripts related to the conference “Targeting & Tinkering with Interaction Networks”, held in Barcelona on the 14–16th of April 2008. This is the sixth meeting of the Barcelona BioMed Conference series organised by the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) with the collaboration of the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria Foundation (BBVA Foundation) and hosted by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC) in Barcelona. We have gathered together minireviews from major players in the area of biological networks and chemical biology, from both experimental and computational perspectives, and the result is a volume that will provide an excellent overview of the state of the art in this new and growing area of biomedical science. We thank all our colleagues for taking the time to contribute to the conference and, indeed, to this Special Issue. We would also especially like to thank Patricia McCabe, the Editorial Manager of FEBS Letters, who enthusiastically embraced the idea of this Special Issue and somehow managed, while working against the clock, to coordinate a very busy group of contributors and two bumbling editors.
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-03-06
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref', 'pubmed']
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Cited By Count: 8
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