Abstract

Much of systems biology aims to predict the behaviour of biological systems on the basis of the set of molecules involved. Understanding the interactions between these molecules is therefore crucial to such efforts. Although many thousands of interactions are known, precise molecular details are available for only a tiny fraction of them. The difficulties that are involved in experimentally determining atomic structures for interacting proteins make predictive methods essential for progress. Structural details can ultimately turn abstract system representations into models that more accurately reflect biological reality.

Author affiliations

1. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA) and Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB), Parc Cientfic de Barcelona, Josep Samitier 1–5, 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
2. European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany.

Correspondence to: Robert B. Russell² Email: russell@embl.de

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.