Technological advances in generated molecular and cell biological data are transforming biomedical research. Sequencing, multi-omics and imaging technologies are likely to have deep impact on the future of medical practice. In parallel to technological developments, methodologies to gather, integrate, visualize and analyze heterogeneous and large-scale data sets are needed to develop new approaches for diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. Systems Medicine: Integrative, Qualitative and Computational Approaches is an innovative, interdisciplinary and integrative approach that extends the concept of systems biology and the unprecedented insights that computational methods and mathematical modeling offer of the interactions and network behavior of complex biological systems, to novel clinically relevant applications for the design of more successful prognostic, diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. This 3 volume work features 132 entries from renowned experts in the fields and covers the tools, methods, algorithms and data analysis workflows used for integrating and analyzing multi-dimensional data routinely generated in clinical settings with the aim of providing medical practitioners with robust clinical decision support systems. Importantly the work delves into the applications of systems medicine in areas such as tumor systems biology, metabolic and cardiovascular diseases as well as immunology and infectious diseases amongst others. This is a fundamental resource for biomedical students and researchers as well as medical practitioners who need to need to adopt advances in computational tools and methods into the clinical practice. Encyclopedic coverage: ‘one-stop’ resource for access to information written by world-leading scholars in the field of Systems Biology and Systems Medicine, with easy cross-referencing of related articles to promote understanding and further research Authoritative: the whole work is authored and edited by recognized experts in the field, with a range of different expertise, ensuring a high quality standard Digitally innovative: Hyperlinked references and further readings, cross-references and diagrams/images will allow readers to easily navigate a wealth of information

Praise for Computational Systems BiologyApproaches in Cancer Research: "Complex concepts are written clearly and with informative illustrations and useful links. The book is enjoyable to read yet provides sufficient depth to serve as a valuable resource for both students and faculty." — Trey Ideker, Professor of Medicine, UC Xan Diego, School of Medicine "This volume is attractive because it addresses important and timely topics for research and teaching on computational methods in cancer research. It covers a broad variety of approaches, exposes recent innovations in computational methods, and provides acces to source code and to dedicated interactive web sites." — Yves Moreau, Department of Electrical Engineering, SysBioSys Centre for Computational Systems Biology, University of Leuven With the availability of massive amounts of data in biology, the need for advanced computational tools and techniques is becoming increasingly important and key in understanding biology in disease and healthy states. This book focuses on computational systems biology approaches, with a particular lens on tackling one of the most challenging diseases - cancer. The book provides an important reference and teaching material in the field of computational biology in general and cancer systems biology in particular. The book presents a list of modern approaches in systems biology with application to cancer research and beyond. It is structured in a didactic form such that the idea of each approach can easily be grasped from the short text and self-explanatory figures. The coverage of topics is diverse: from pathway resources, through methods for data analysis and single data analysis to drug response predictors, classifiers and image analysis using machine learning and artificial intelligence approaches. Features Up to date using a wide range of approaches Applicationexample in each chapter Online resources with useful applications’

This volume guides readers through the field of systems medicine by defining the terminology, and describing how established computational methods form bioinformatics and systems biology can be taken forward to an integrative systems medicine approach. Chapters provide an outlook on the role that systems medicine may or should play in various medical fields, and describe different facets of the systems medicine approach in action. Ultimately it introduces tools, resources and methodologies from bioinformatics and systems biology, and how to apply these in a systems medicine project. Written for the Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, and discuss experimental and computational approaches, methods, and tools that should be considered for a successful systems medicine project. Systems Medicine aims to motivate and provide guidance for collaborations across disciplines to tackle today's challenges related to human health and well-being.

Computational Immunology: Models and Tools encompasses the methodological framework and application of cutting-edge tools and techniques to study immunological processes at a systems level, along with the concept of multi-scale modeling. The book's emphasis is on selected cases studies and application of the most updated technologies in computational modeling, discussing topics such as computational modeling and its usage in immunological research, bioinformatics infrastructure, ODE based modeling, agent based modeling, and high performance computing, data analytics, and multiscale modeling. There are also modeling exercises using recent tools and models which lead the readers to a thorough comprehension and applicability. The book is a valuable resource for immunologists, computational biologists, bioinformaticians, biotechnologists, and computer scientists, as well as all those who wish to broaden their knowledge in systems modeling. - Offers case studies with different levels of complexity - Provides a detailed view on cutting-edge tools for modeling that are useful to experimentalists with limited computational skills - Explores the usage of simulation for hypothesis generation, helping the reader to understand the most valuable points on experimental setting

Using bioinformatics methods to generate a systems-level view of the immune system; description of the main biological concepts and the new data-driven algorithms. Despite the fact that advanced bioinformatics methodologies have not been used as extensively in immunology as in other subdisciplines within biology, research in immunological bioinformatics has already developed models of components of the immune system that can be combined and that may help develop therapies, vaccines, and diagnostic tools for such diseases as AIDS, malaria, and cancer. In a broader perspective, specialized bioinformatics methods in immunology make possible for the first time a systems-level understanding of the immune system. The traditional approaches to immunology are reductionist, avoiding complexity but providing detailed knowledge of a single event, cell, or molecular entity. Today, a variety of experimental bioinformatics techniques connected to the sequencing of the human genome provides a sound scientific basis for a comprehensive description of the complex immunological processes. This book offers a description of bioinformatics techniques as they are applied to immunology, including a succinct account of the main biological concepts for students and researchers with backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, and computer science as well as explanations of the new data-driven algorithms in the context of biological data that will be useful for immunologists, biologists, and biochemists working on vaccine design. In each chapter the authors show interesting biological insights gained from the bioinformatics approach. The book concludes by explaining how all the methods presented in the book can be integrated to identify immunogenic regions in microorganisms and host genomes.

Many potential applications of synthetic and systems biology are relevant to the challenges associated with the detection, surveillance, and responses to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. On March 14 and 15, 2011, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) Forum on Microbial Threats convened a public workshop in Washington, DC, to explore the current state of the science of synthetic biology, including its dependency on systems biology; discussed the different approaches that scientists are taking to engineer, or reengineer, biological systems; and discussed how the tools and approaches of synthetic and systems biology were being applied to mitigate the risks associated with emerging infectious diseases. The Science and Applications of Synthetic and Systems Biology is organized into sections as a topic-by-topic distillation of the presentations and discussions that took place at the workshop. Its purpose is to present information from relevant experience, to delineate a range of pivotal issues and their respective challenges, and to offer differing perspectives on the topic as discussed and described by the workshop participants. This report also includes a collection of individually authored papers and commentary.