Spotlight

FY12 Spending Debate Comes to a Close

Congress completed, and the President signed into law, the FY12 appropriations bill. The $915 billion spending bill wraps up the remaining nine appropriations measures. The bill provides funding for programs at the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National
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Rep. Rush Holt’s (D-NJ) Editorial in Most Recent Science

Science 16 September 2011:
Vol. 333 no. 6049 p. 1549
DOI: 10.1126/science.1211494
EDITORIAL:

Dueling Visions for Science

Rush Holt
Rush Holt is the U.S. Representative for New Jersey's 12th Congressional District and has a doctoral degree in physics.

A
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Systems Biology: A New Science - 7/26/06

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Dr. Erin O'Shea
Harvard University

The past decades have brought remarkable advances in biology. Most recently, the ability to rapidly sequence DNA has generated for many organisms a nearly complete "parts list" - a catalog of the genes and proteins. Systems biology is a technique developed to understand how the 30,000 genes every human is born with interact to develop a healthy individual or lead to diseases.

Dr. O'Shea is a leader in the field of systems biology: a field of study that will have a profound impact on biomedical research, opening new avenues for diagnosing and treating a broad range of common human diseases. By studying the relationships and interactions between various parts of a biological system (e.g., gene and protein networks involved in cell signaling, metabolic pathways, organelles, cells, physiological systems, organisms, etc.), it is hoped that an understandable model of the whole system can eventually be developed.

Dr. O'Shea discussses how systems biology can impact human health by guiding targets for drug discovery, creating a better understanding of the origins of side effects of drugs, and by generating new diagnostic tests that predict disease progression and guide the course of treatment.