25th Anniversary Distinguished Lecture Series

 

palssonThe Systems Biology of Metabolism

Bernhard Palsson
Galletti Professor of Bioengineering, UC San Diego

Friday, Nov. 11, 11 a.m., TI Auditorium (ECSS 2.102) Refreshments at 10:45 a.m.

 

 

 

Abstract
The full genome sequences that began to appear some 15 years ago enabled the bottom-up reconstruction of biochemical reaction networks that operate in a particular target organism. Such reconstructions can be converted into a mathematical format that represents mechanistic genotype-phenotype relationship. This relationship is fundamental in biology, and it has a very different characteristic that the basic physical laws elucidated about a century ago. In this talk we; 1) put the field of molecular systems biology into a historical context, 2) review the workflows and procedures that have been developed over the past decade for network reconstruction, and 3) go through a series of examples that show how mechanistic metabolic genotype-phenotype relationships are utilized.

Bio
Bernhard Palsson is the Galetti Professor of Bioengineering and the Principal Investigator of the Systems Biology Research Group in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Palsson has co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed research articles and has authored three textbooks, with one more in preparation. His research includes the development of methods to analyze metabolic dynamics (flux-balance analysis, and modal analysis), and the formulation of complete models of selected cells (the red blood cell, E. coli, hybridoma, and several human pathogens). He sits on the editorial boards of several leading peer-reviewed microbiology, bioengineering, and biotechnology journals. He previously held a faculty position at the University of Michigan for 11 years and was named the G.G. Brown Associate Professor at Michigan in 1989, a Fulbright fellow in 1995, and an Ib Henriksen Fellow in 1996. He is the author of 38 patents, and is the co-founder of several biotechnology companies. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dr. Palsson is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and was recently elected Fellow of both the AAAS and the AAM.