Small Grant for Visiting Researcher Professor Marek Kimmel, Rice University

Systems Biology (SB) seeks to understand the workings of biological systems as a whole, placing a greater emphasis on the interactions between components, and the consequences of such interactions, than on the molecular components themselves. As such mathematical modelling and statistical analysis are key theoretical tools. Such work is considered to be of great importance to a better understanding of an enormously broad range of biological and medical priorities such as disease mechanisms, pharmaceutical drug discovery, drug target validation, and horticulture and agriculture. Dr Kimmel is an internationally leading expert in three areas which are central to this research: branching processes (particularly theory and applications in cell biology and genetics); statistical aspects of genetics and genomics; and mathematical modelling of cellular signaling systems. This grant is to fund a visit of four and a half months to the University of Warwick to mutually strengthen research in these areas and to encourage new collaborations between researchers at Dr Kimmel's group, and researchers at Warwick and elsewhere with interests in Systems Biology or the mathematical/statistical skills to contribute to it.

The major beneficiaries of this work will include:
- Experimental biologists & medics. Robust models, in silico experiments and theoretical tools are increasingly providing an alternative means of further exploration. WSB is expert in communicating theoretical ideas to experimental biologists and experimentalists in related industries.
- Theoretical/computational systems biologists. This study will encourage a transfer of ideas between the research areas of dynamical systems, stochastic system, biomedicine, bioinformatics and molecular biology.
- Mathematicians and theoreticians outside the Systems Biology community. This work will generate new ideas and conjectures of interest to the mathematical and theoretical communities.
- The PDRAs in the Mathematics Institute and WSB and student in these departments and in the Systems Biology and Complexity DTCs. will get training additional training in interdisciplinary area including mathematical models of cellular signalling systems, branching processes in cell biology and genetics, mathematical/statistical aspects of genetics and genomics.
- Biologist and biomedical research workers interested in inflammation and cancer, and pharmaceutical companies. The NF-kappaB and p53 system are probably the most important stress response pathways in the mammalian cell. AstraZeneca has an ongoing interest in the NF-kappaB system.

The following approaches will be used for dissemination and forging links with beneficiaries and end-users:
- Via Professor White's lab in Manchester, the BBSRC STEMN Network and the ROBuST project, the NF-kappaB SABR grant network, the PRESTA project (all BBSRC/EPSRC funded ). This will facilitate communication with biologists and others involved in Systems Biology.
- Dr Kimmel will give a keynote presentation at the European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology 2011.
- Publications in multi-disciplinary journals such as PNAS, PLoS J. of Computational Biology, and Molecular Systems Biology.
- WSB has a professional website and the work of Kimmel will be highlighted on this.
- Dr Kimmel will give research seminars at other universities, will organize two 1-day research meetings at Warwick and will teach a short course at Warwick

The success of the proposed activities will be measured by assessing the effectiveness of collaboration with experimentalists, feedback received at conferences, publication and later citation of papers.

Exploitation and Application
We expect rapid uptake of the theoretical developments by interested experimental groups. The biological systems being studied here are behind key processes in a number of key diseases including cancer, inflammation, diabetes, obesity and infection and it is increasingly being recognized that since such diseases are multi-factorial in origin, SB is arguably the only research approach that has the potential to disentangle the multiple factors that contribute to their pathogenesis. We believe that there is potential for medical application within a 5-year period and for collaboration with pharmaceutical companies such as Astra-Zeneca who are interested in, for example, NF-kappaB signalling.

What facilities do we have for dissemination
Activities related to research dissemination will be undertaken by the Rand and Kimmel. The University of Warwick provides different forms of support for efficient outreach activities through the Research Support Services, the University Communication Office, the Media Centre and Warwick Podcast. These will be used extensively for developing a successful public engagement. In addition, the PI has had substantial involvement in training workshops for MSc/PhD students and post-docs. This experience will be put to full use in order to advertise and promote this research via future training activities. WSB has a professional website and the work of Kimmel will be highlighted on this.