Overview
Scientists at the Molecular Sciences Institute conduct research
to understand and predict the behavior of cells in response
to defined environmental and genetic changes. What we are
aiming for is a level of understanding and predictive ability
no less than our current understanding of celestial mechanics
or the behavior of electrons in electrical circuits. To do
this work, we have assembled an interdisciplinary team of
scientists and coupled experimentation and computation to
accelerate the process of obtaining predictive understanding.
The flagship activity of the MSI from 2002 to 2009 was the Alpha
Project at the Center for Quantitative Genome Function
aimed at predicting the quantitative behavior of a eukaryotic
regulatory network in individual cells over time and in response
to defined perturbations. Gaining this level of understanding
requires constructing the necessary experimental and computational
tools to interrogate and analyze the system, and devising
new mathematical and computational frameworks for describing
system behavior. Many of these new technologies, such as tadpoles that
precisely detect small numbers of molecules in a heterogeneous
population, can be scaled for genome wide studies and will
prove useful for medical applications such as disease detection
and diagnosis. Pursuit
of this type of research at MSI and at other institutions
provided the impetus for a new interdisciplinary collaboration, biology
and social science that examines the social constructs
underlying modern biological research and its impacts on
contemporary society. This collaboration examines how the
increase in biological capability impacts the security environment
and might positively impact global health.
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