Systems Biology and Biological Networks

This class will give an introduction to systems biology methods in modeling and analysis of cellular networks. This course has a special emphasis on (1) biological interaction networks, and (2) genome-level cellular metabolism. Students will learn through lectures and applied projects, and gain hands-on experience using Python programming. An interdisciplinary presentation of the topics will be emphasized, making the class accessible to students with a background in computer science, biology, chemistry, and physics.

At the completion of this course, the students are expected to be able to:

• Explain basic concepts, models, and statistical measures to characterize the properties of general networks, as well as using Python programming tools to analyze empirical networks.
• Explain basic concepts, principles and methods of metabolic engineering.
• Explain the organization and construction process of genome-scale metabolic networks
• Explain the principles behind constraint-based analysis (especially Flux Balance Analysis), as well as being proficient in the use of Python programming tools for the numerical analysis of empirical models.

Lectures will be given in English.