Bioinformatics and Systems Biology – Bridging the Divide

Description and aim (website)

This workshop intends to bring together leading researchers from the fields of systems biology and (integrative) bioinformatics. Both fields have a common goal, namely to obtain detailed descriptions of biological systems and their relationship to observed phenotypes. However, they are limited to either detailed models of small systems (systems biology) or highly descriptive models of larger systems (integrative bioinformatics). Therefore, currently the main challenge is to develop ways to combine techniques from both domains in order to obtain quantitative models at a genome-wide scale for complex organisms such as human.

The goal of this workshop is to identify general principles for successfully integrating systems biology models and more descriptive bioinformatics models to enhance the accuracy and completeness of the overall model. Particular challenges we will focus on during the workshop are: (i) optimal experimental design when combining bottom-up and top-down modelling, (ii) how to store and interconnect experimental data, domain knowledge, and models, (iii) how to infer new information and biological insight from structurally stored models and data. The workshop will be truly multidisciplinary and bring together bioinformaticians, mathematical modellers, molecular biologists, and (algorithmic) computer scientists. General “recipes” for successful integration of bioinformatics, bio-modelling and experimental biology will be laid down in a white paper, that we will start drafting during the workshop.