The Center for the Study of Systems Biology is poised to be a central player in an emerging revolution in biology and in the treatment of disease – identifying the human genome proteins that are responsible for certain diseases and developing appropriate drugs to target those proteins and diseases. 

The center has an ambitious long-term research goal of simulating and understanding how life works. As it pursues this goal, the center’s researchers work to identify and develop novel approaches to: 

• Diagnose and treat diseases, especially cancer
• Develop drugs
• Understand protein pathways and their potential roles in treating diseases   

Because the practical implications of the center’s research are often immediate, the center emphasizes rapid commercialization of the ideas and technology that researchers develop. 

Worth noting: Systems Biology seeks to understand how the components of complex living systems interact — and how their malfunction causes disease. Because many diseases are caused by protein malfunction, understanding which proteins are responsible for certain diseases can help researchers design appropriate drugs for treatment. To date, only about 500 of the 25,000 proteins in the human genome have been targets for drugs; some researchers estimate that another 2,000 to 2,500 proteins are potential drug targets.

Institutions involved: Georgia Institute of Technology

Research focus: The center’s research focus includes: 

• Bioinformatics
• Prediction of protein function
• Elucidation of metabolic pathways
• Development and implementation of algorithms for large-scale computer simulations of proteins

GRA investment: The center is led by GRA Eminent Scholar Dr. Jeffrey Skolnick. GRA also has invested in the center’s 35-ton,1000-node supercomputing cluster, capable of performing 8.5 trillion calculations per second.

External funding: The center averages $1 million in annual federal and industry funding.

Web site: http://cssb.biology.gatech.edu/