Selecting the best therapeutic target(s) is one of the major challenges in developing new and efficient drugs. In addition to its scientific relevance, it has a profound impact on the health/quality of life of the European population, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, by decreasing the cost of drug development.
Nowadays, although our understanding of individual gene and protein function becomes important, it is not sufficient for unravelling the complexity of biological and pathological processes! Indeed, modern high throughput technologies in biological science, such as genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics, often generate lists of molecules of interest. However, they do not always increase our knowledge of the biological processes or the subsequent identification of therapeutic targets.
It therefore becomes critical to develop our understanding of biological system’s structure and dynamics.
A biological system is more than an assembly of genes and proteins. Its properties cannot be fully unravelled through static diagrammatic representations of their interconnections. Although such diagrams represent an important step, we now need information on the dynamics of these interconnections and how we can control them.
The challenge is therefore, to construct a descriptive model from these lists of molecules that could reflect the underlying biological mechanisms as accurately as possible and, ultimately, allow the identification and selection of the best therapeutic targets to treat human disease.
