Plug-and-play models in systems biology

What is it about?

The biochemistry within a cell is complex, being composed of numerous biomolecules and reactions. To develop fully detailed mathematical models of cells, we need to make smaller models and connect these in a modular fashion, like Lego blocks. This is an approach commonly used in engineering, but current "plug-and-play" methods routinely ignore the fundamental physical laws like conservation of mass and energy. This results in models that cannot exist in reality. In this paper, we introduce a new, modular approach for combining systems biology models, while also being grounded in physical conservation laws. We base our methodology on the bond graph approach from engineering. We show that this new approach is completely compatible with software advances in recent decades, allowing us to build on top of the existing software infrastructure.

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Photo by Iker Urteaga on Unsplash

Photo by Iker Urteaga on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Life arises from a complex series of rules and processes that are difficult to untangle through intuition alone. Understanding life requires mathematical models that describe this complexity. Our work provides the foundations for building detailed, realistic and large-scale models of cells. In the future, we expect this will enable the tailoring of clinical treatments to individuals and the design of "cell factories" in synthetic biology.