Making Sense of Disease Pathways (U04312)

? Credit Points : 10 ? SCQF Level : 10 ? Acronym : BMS-4-MakSen

The normal function of cells, tissues and organs involves interactions between series of molecules, often proteins, which result in specific biological events. These series of molecular interactions are referred to as pathways. Disruption of such pathways commonly underlies disease states. Thus, identifying which molecules make up a given pathway, how they interact, and illustrating this information in a standard form, provide opportunities to increase our understanding of the role of these pathways in health and disease. Unfortunately, we have traditionally been very poor in creating good methods of communicating pathway information.

Much of our current understanding about the molecular components of life and how they interact with each other has been painstakingly worked out by researchers. However, their focus is commonly on particular proteins and their contribution to a specific process, meaning pathway information is often effectively buried in the literature. Ultimately, the challenges contained in identifying the components of, and interactions within, a pathway, are to read the literature, record the information, and draw a graphical view of it using a set of defined symbols and rules.

This course is primarily a literature-based review but with a twist. You will be given a defined area of biology and asked to go away and research it. The objective is then not only to produce a written description of what you have read but also to translate that understanding into a graphical representation of the pathway. We will provide the tools, the know-how and support and if we’re lucky we will all end up wiser about an area of biology with a powerful way of communicating that information to others.

The following article provides further information:
A logic-based diagram of signalling pathways central to macrophage activation. Raza S, Robertson K, Lacaze P, Page D, Enright A, Ghazal P, Freeman T, BMC Systems Biology, 2008 2:36