Finding Minimal Perturbations in Gene Regulatory Networks

Guy Karlebach

Abstract:

As genome-wide experiments accumulate, the biomedical community is obtaining a deeper understanding of the interplay between genotype and phenotype. In particular, the importance of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) in these processes is becoming widely recognized.
Understanding GRNs is difficult since their dynamics can be highly complex, and because experimental methods give only indirect clues on the underlying mechanisms that govern the dynamics. Hence it is difficult to construct models for networks that have not been extensively studied, especially when the number of participating entities is large. Logical models are a partial solution to this problem as their level of abstraction relieves the modeler from the need to provide fine details (e.g. kinetic constants).