Plant and Animal Genome XXIV Conference

January 08 - 13, 2016

3177

Systems Biology and Ontologies

Systems biology is a scientific approach that emphasizes the structure and dynamic behavior of complex biological systems and their inherent interactions. This approach involves the integration of experimental and computational research and often involves genome-wide “omics” studies. Analyses of these vast datasets have the potential to improve our understanding of the molecular basis of phenotypes, gene expression, molecular interactions, development, response to perturbation in the genotype and its interaction with the environment and species evolution.

Common vocabularies (ontologies), structured in a way that permits computer-aided reasoning about relationships among different kinds of entities, can facilitate inter-specific comparisons at the systems biology scale. Thus, ontologies have become indispensable tools for data curation and analysis in the life sciences. The Gene Ontology and the Plant Ontology, along with many others, are being used for the systematic annotation of data: documenting associations between genes, gene products, or sequences and the structures or processes to which they contribute. These annotations facilitate computerized searching and reasoning over large data sets from multiple sources, allowing researchers to address questions in comparative genetics, development, and genomics.

The goals of the workshop are to demonstrate (1) development, integration and usage of ontologies and (2) novel systems biology approaches being used to find insights by analyzing the massive amounts of genomics and genetics data becoming available.