Making Sense of Biological Systems: Using Knowledge Mining to Improve and Validate Models of Living Systems

Systems biology is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on global analysis of complex interactions in biological systems. As our understanding grows, so does the realization that we need to incorporate techniques and insights from many different fields, if we are to understand the interconnections that govern living systems and successfully predict their behavior under different conditions. In our efforts to integrate available knowledge, we are faced with the challenge of the vast amounts of digital information provided by on-line scientific documents, websites, and databases.

This workshop, hosted and sponsored by the Montana State University NIH COBRE Center for the Analysis of Cellular Mechanisms and Systems Biology, aims to educate participants on the current state-of-the-art, and discuss concrete proposals for improving the way systems biology information is mined from the literature, modeled and shared. The workshop will address three directions that are pertinent to understanding systems biology knowledge: first, advances in computational mining and processing of scientific content; second, advances in storing, accessing, and combining research data and scientific workflows, and third, models of biological knowledge and thoughts about improving the way this knowledge is represented to improve understanding and enhance interconnections between related fields.