Systems biology and India

D Balasubramanian, in his Speaking of Science column in the Hindu, describes metabolome and systems biology:

Did you know that the human body has 2500 small molecules as metabolites, 1200 drugs, and 3500 food components?

This catalogue is referred to as, what else, our metabolome.

…

As Dr. Eric Lander said, decoding the genome is akin to writing out the list of parts that make a Boeing 727, and the challenge starts now: to understand how the parts are put together, what each part does, and how they interact and govern each other’s actions. This is the business of the new subject called systems biology.

He goes on to make a case for India to take the initiatives in developing systems biology:

Systems biology is thus a highly interdisciplinary field – genetics and biochemistry, bioinformatics, computer modelling, and data analysis (…). The rewards are rich- giving information on toxicity analysis of drugs, disease diagnosis, metabolic fingerprinting and basic biology.

Here is an area that is still developing, an area where India can take a leading role by putting together biologists, computer scientists, and systems analysts. Lets us go for it.

Take a look!

Tags: metabolome, metabolomic, systems biology