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Multidisciplinary Investigation into Adult Stem Cell Behavior

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Transactions on Computational Systems Biology III

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((TCSB,volume 3737))

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Abstract

We are part of a multi-disciplinary team investigating new understandings of stem cell behaviour, and specifically looking novel ideas about how adult stem cells behave and organise themselves in the human body. We have used different methods and mechanisms for investigating and interpreting these new ideas from medical science. These have included mathematical modelling, simulation and visualisation as well as a series of art pieces that have resulted from looking at the overall nature of our combined multi-disciplinary attempt to investigate new theories of biological organisation. In this paper we look at several issues relating to our project. First, we provide reasons for why formal models and simulations are needed to explore this growing area of research. Is there an argument to suggest that we need simulations as a way in to understanding various properties of stem cells that are observed in wet lab experiments? Next, an introduction on current theoretical models of stem cells is presented along with an outline of some of the problems and limitations of these approaches. We then provide an overview of our agent-based model of stem cells, and discuss strategies for implementing this model as a simulation and its subsequent visualisation. Then we discuss the role of the artist (the second author) in developing our model and simulation and the influence of the artwork/exhibition on the other members in our team. Our premise is that artists can conceptualise scientific theories without the standard discipline-specific constraints, and thereby potentially influence the development of scientific theories, their mathematical formulation; and their associated aesthetics. Finally, we argue that for the field of bioinformatics to move forward in a holistic and cohesive manner more multi-disciplinary efforts such as ours would be of significant benefit to this research area [20]. This paper might be viewed as an advert for the benefits of multi-disciplinary teams in understanding new experimental data in medicine and biology.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cavendish School of Computer Science, University of Westminster, 115, New Cavendish Street, London, W1M 8JS

    Mark d’Inverno

  2. University of Westminster, 70, Great Portland Street, London, W1W 7UW

    Jane Prophet

Authors
  1. Mark d’Inverno
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  2. Jane Prophet
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Computational and Systems Biology, The Microsoft Research - University of Trento, Piazza Manci, 17, 38050, Povo (TN), Italy

    Corrado Priami

  2. Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Università di Camerino, I-62032, Camerino, Italy

    Emanuela Merelli

  3. DEIS, Università di Bologna, Via Venezia 52, 47023, Cesena, Italy

    Pablo Gonzalez

  4. Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna a Cesena,, via Venezia 52, 47023, Cesena, Italy

    Andrea Omicini

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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d’Inverno, M., Prophet, J. (2005). Multidisciplinary Investigation into Adult Stem Cell Behavior. In: Priami, C., Merelli, E., Gonzalez, P., Omicini, A. (eds) Transactions on Computational Systems Biology III. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3737. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11599128_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11599128_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-30883-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31446-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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