In Silico Evolution and Reverse Engineering of Gene Regulatory Networks
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Date: 03-28-2008
Start Time:
11:00am
End Time: 12:00pm
Speaker: Daniel Marcbach
From:
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne
Location: Interschool Lab, 750 CEPSR
Abstract
Reverse engineering and modeling gene regulatory networks is a necessary first step in understanding cells at a system level. We have developed a new approach for reverse engineering gene networks, which consists of using a reconstruction process that is similar to the evolutionary process that created these networks. The aim is to integrate prior knowledge into the reverse engineering procedure, thus biasing the search towards biologically plausible solutions. To this end, we use in silico evolution with a biomimetic genome that abstracts and mimics the natural evolution of gene regulatory networks.
Our method won a gene network reverse engineering challenge of the DREAM2 conference (New York, 2007). In this talk I summarize these results and present our recent work on gene network modeling. Finally, I motivate the use of detailed in silico evolution models to understand the emergence of "design principles" in cellular networks.