Welcome to the Green Comprehensive Center for Computational and Systems Biology
UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
Director: Rama Ranganathan, MD, PhD. | Contact: Diana Davis, 214-645-5963
 
Progress in biology over the past several decades, both conceptual and technical, has provided a sense of deep complexity in the design of living systems. Proteins, cells, tissues, and organisms are all comprised of interconnected networks that seem precisely optimized for their biological niche. Not surprisingly, subtle alterations in the design can lead to profound functional changes, sometimes manifested as disease. Nevertheless, living systems are also fault-tolerant and stable against an unpredictable environment. The basic mission of the Center for Systems Biology is two-fold: (1) to discover and quantitatively understand the general principles of organization in biological systems that provide these features, and (2) to understand how these features arise through the process of evolution. The Center includes a highly interactive faculty whose research programs are diverse but share a common theme - understanding the nature of complexity in biology.
    Steve Altschuler    Altschuler and Wu Lab       Faculty Page     Spatial and temporal organization of biological networks
  Peter Robin Hiesinger    Hiesinger Lab       Faculty Page     Neurogenetics of Brain Wiring and Function
  Rama Ranganathan    Ranganathan Lab       Faculty Page     Evolutionary Design Principles of Proteins
  Gurol Suel    Suel Lab       Faculty Page     Gene regulatory circuits that control cellular decision-making
  Lani Wu    Altschuler and Wu Lab       Faculty Page     Design principles of biological networks
   
2007
  • Mishra, P., Socolich, M., Wall, M.A., Graves, J., Wang, Z. and Ranganathan, R. (2007). Dynamic Scaffolding in a G Proten-Coupled Signaling System. Cell 131:80-92
  • Suel, G.M., Kulkami, R.P., Dworkin, J., Garcia-Ojalvo, J., and Elowitz, M.B. (2007). Tunability and noise dependence in differentiation dynamics. Science 440:545-50.
  • Marco, E., Wedlich-Soldner, R., Li, R., Altschuler SJ and Wu, L (2007) Endocytosis optimizes the spatial precision of dynamically maintained cortical polarity domains. Cell 129:411-22
  • Loo, L.H., Wu, L.F., Altschuler, S.J. (2007). Image-based multivariate profiling of drug responses from single cells. Nature Methods 4:445-53.
2006
  • Hiesinger P.R., et al. (2006). Activity-independent prespecification of synaptic partners in the visual map of Drosophila. Curr Biol. 2006 Sep 19;16(18):1835-43.
  • Poole A.M., Ranganathan R. (2006) Knowledge-based potentials in protein design. Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2006 Aug;16(4):508-13.
  • Natarajan M., Lin K.M., Hsueh R.C., Sternweis P.C., Ranganathan R. A global analysis of cross-talk in a mammalian cellular signalling network. Nat Cell Biol. 2006 Jun;8(6):571-80. Epub 2006 May 14.
  • Suel G.M., et al. (2006) An excitable gene regulatory circuit induces transient cellular differentiation. Nature. 2006 Mar 23;440(7083):545-50.
  • Maciag K, Altschuler SJ, Slack MD, Krogan NJ, Emili A, Greenblatt JF, Maniatis T, Wu LF. (2006) Systems-level analyses identify extensive coupling among gene expression machines. Mol Syst Biol. 2006;2:2006.0003.
2005
  • Russ WP, Lowery DM, Mishra P, Yaffe MB, Ranganathan R. (2005) Natural-like function in artificial WW domains. Nature. 2005 Sep 22;437(7058):579-83.
  • Socolich M, Lockless SW, Russ WP, Lee H, Gardner KH, Ranganathan R. (2005) Evolutionary information for specifying a protein fold. Nature. 2005 Sep 22;437(7058):512-8.
  • Hiesinger and Hassan (2005). Genetics in the age of systems biology. Cell. 2005 Dec 29;123(7):1173-4.
  • Yuan GC, Liu YJ, Dion MF, Slack MD, Wu LF, Altschuler SJ, Rando OJ. Genome-scale identification of nucleosome positions in S. cerevisiae. Science. 2005 Jul 22;309(5734):626-30.
  • Hiesinger et al., (2005) The v-ATPase V0 subunit a1 is required for a late step in synaptic vesicle exocytosis in Drosophila. Cell. 2005 May 20;121(4):607-20.
  • Dion MF, Altschuler SJ, Wu LF, Rando OJ. Genomic characterization reveals a simple histone H4 acetylation code. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Apr 12;102(15):5501-6.