Networks in Biology: from Protein Interactions to the Metabolism

A presentation by Dr. Eivind Almaas of the University of Notre Dame.

During the last few years, network approaches have shown great promise as a new tool to analyze and understand complex systems as disparate as the world-wide web, scientific collaborations, sexual contacts, and the power-grid of the Western US. However, in order to fully characterize complex networks, we need to look beyond their topology and incorporate their dynamical aspects. I
will start by giving an overview of the structure of biological networks with emphasis on the protein-interaction network and the metabolism, before discussing recent insights from applying network thinking to the plasticity and function of metabolic networks.