Seminar

Systems Biology: From basic to clinical research

Dr. Felix Elortza and Dr. Teresa Sardón

Nowadays, biomarkers are fundamental in clinics as they are useful for correct patient handling on diagnostic and prognostic sides. Proteomics is among the approaches focused to the discovery of new biomarkers. In the first part of the talk, Felix Elortza (Proteomics Platform Manager at CIC bioGUNE) will briefly show latest advances of the methodologies they are currently implementing: Proteomic analysis by label free nLC MS/MS, Tissue MALDI-TOF Imaging, biofluid peptidomics and post-translational modification (PTMs) analysis. On the other hand, Systems Biology is the study of biological systems (such as a cell or a human) considering that they are formed by interacting elements (such as proteins, genes, and metabolites). It is the natural evolution of molecular biology, especially as high-throughput technologies produce quantitatively untreatable results. More importantly, the current understanding of human pathophysiology underlines that essentially important diseases, such as cancer and metabolic diseases, cannot be fully addressed by traditional reductionist approaches. Anaxomics implements Systems Biology to mathematically model human physiology by integrating the known information about the functional interactome with researchers’ own data, and with a focus on clinical translation. In this seminar, Teresa Sardon will present several cases where Anaxomics´ approaches have led to significant advances in private and public research in the fields of biomarker discovery, drug repositioning, identification of drug or disease targets, and elucidation of molecular mechanisms.