Applied Systems Biology Core

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ABSTRACT - APPLIED SYSTEMS BIOLOGY CORE (ASBC) The Michigan O'Brien Kidney Translational Resource Center (MKTC) aims to provide an effective translational research pipeline for research base investigators to develop novel, mechanistic treatment strategies for patients with acute and chronic kidney diseases (CKDs). The Primary Goal of the Applied Systems Biology Core (ASBC) is to be the catalyst of this process by providing expert consulting services for integrative data mining of genome wide renal data sets. During the last 14 years, the ASBC team has developed a unique set of tools and skills to serve as the bridge connecting the deep biological and clinical knowledge of the domain experts in the MKTC Research labs with the relevant segments in large-scale molecular and clinical renal disease data sets. The Core supports a wide range of research efforts by kidney researchers ranging from NIH training and career development grant awardees, independent investigators and NIH-funded multicenter research networks. The main objective of the ASBC is to empower investigators to mine and extract pertinent knowledge from genome-scale data sets from human kidney disease and model systems in support of their research needs: (a) Understand kidney development, function and injury in global molecular terms; (b) Define molecular markers of functionally defined renal disease categories and their progression; (c) Identify critical pathways for therapeutic focus; (d) Functionally define patient populations for targeted clinical trials; (e) Mapping molecular responses to treatments in trial participants back to pathways and model systems. To meet this objective, the ASBC provides a unique set of tools and skills to the reginal, national and global Kidney Research Community. Specific Functions of the Core will be to assist investigators in integrating the rich genetic and molecular data sets in their focused, hypothesis driven research to concentrate these studies on human, disease-associated mechanisms. This will be implemented with a two-tiered approach with the ASBC team providing individualized search strategies using a suite of data mining and visualization tools to link the research base investigators with molecular insights gleaned from human and model data sets. Interactive shared data-mining will be performed by a systems biologist–biomedical/clinician scientist research team using interactive or semi-structured work flows. In parallel, ASBC will employ standardized and containerized workflows for large-scale data sets of kidney disease for semi-supervised data mining by experienced center investigators. The ASBC will serve as a bi-directional translational machine driving interactions between basic and clinical scientists towards the rapid discovery and implementation of novel insights and therapies for kidney diseases.