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One of the final goals of systems biology is to recreate and design life in silico. Researchers are stitching together pieces of molecular inventory to create virtual microbial cells, says Pawan Dhar.
Constructing a virtual cell out of a real cell calls for massive number crunching of experimental biological data into computable units. The key is to use the right combination of methods and tools, says Pawan Dhar.
Computational systems modeling is increasingly being used in biology at the molecular pathway and network levels. What goes into converting life into numbers? Pawan Dhar explains the concept in the first of a series of articles on the virtual cell.
Every day thousands of animals get killed to feed a rapidly growing human population. The prevalent practices of 'slaughter to salver' entail risks of infection as also suffering for the animals. A new technology of producing animal meat in the lab could be the much awaited solution, Pawan Kumar Dhar contends.
Given the enormous popularity of the periodic table in chemistry, doesn't it make sense to build a periodic table for biology? Pawan Kumar Dhar visualises the anatomy, the potential pay-offs and the constraints of this novel idea.
Mendel's laws of inheritance were zoom-in-zoom-out. They were not designed to describe the evolution of information in the intermediate layers between genotype and phenotype. What kind of preparation is needed to discover laws in these layers of biology? Pawan Kumar Dhar explores.
