SBIR Phase I: BioPath Finder: An integrative workflow for the design, construction and analysis of biological pathways

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目将开发一种创新的工作流程，大大加快系统生物学的模型构建过程。此工作流将使定义模型的数据和机制的收集成为一个集成的过程，使建模师能够就模型构建过程做出一致的、知情的决策。由于FDA推动药物发现过程现代化，以及系统生物学等新兴领域的出现，建模正变得越来越重要。然而，建模的广泛采用受到了限制，因为当前创建模型的实践是费力的，因为很难从各种来源(如文献、数据库和该领域的专家)收集和消化数据。这种方法的商业价值很高，因为制药业正在数学建模和系统生物学上投入大量资金，以克服自1990年S以来药物开发成本飙升和新药发现停滞的问题。到2009年，系统生物学产品和服务的市场预计将以66%的年复合增长率超过10亿美元。此外，发达国家的人口老龄化将导致医疗成本的急剧增加，同时也面临着严重的预算压力(来自政府和私营保险公司)，要求控制医疗成本。因此，加快研究周期并降低新药和治疗方法的开发成本的方法将变得越来越重要。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop an innovative workflow that greatly expedites the model building process in Systems Biology. This workflow will make the collection of data and mechanisms in order to define the model an integrated process, enabling modelers to make consistent, well-informed decisions about the model building process. Modeling is becoming increasing important, motivated by the FDA's drive to modernize the drug discovery process and the advent of emerging fields such as Systems Biology. A broad adoption of modeling has been limited, however, because the current practice of creating models is laborious in that it is difficult to assemble and digest data from various sources, such as the literature, databases, and experts in the field. Moreover, it is one of the critical bottlenecks or limiting steps in the process of producing a model that can be used in the research cycle.The commercial value of this approach is high as the pharmaceutical industry is investing significantly in mathematical modeling and Systems Biology aiming to overcome both the skyrocketing costs of drug development and the stagnation in the discovery of new drugs since the 1990's. The market for Systems Biology products and services is expected to grow at an annual compound rate of 66% exceeding $1 billion by 2009. Further, aging populations in developed countries are going to cause sharp increases in health care costs, while at the same time there are serious budgetary pressures (both from government and private insurers) to keep health care costs under control. Thus, methods that speed up the research cycle and reduce development costs for new drugs and treatments are going to become increasingly important.