Driving Biological Projects

The Driving Biological Projects (DBPs) target important biological questions and are structured as collaborative efforts between computational, experimental and clinical researchers. They provide the requirements that drive the basic and applied computational research in the Center. They also act as the testbed for assessing the usefulness of the Center's software tools by offering a biologically relevant context for their application and evaluation.

MAGNet supports 10 DBPs representing a wide range of biomedical problems:

• DPB 1: Structural and energetic basis of cadherin binding specificity.


• DBP 2: Regulatory modules in normal and transformed B-cells.


• DBP 3: Genomic and bioinformatics solutions to the search for genetic determinants of common heritable disorders.


• DBP 4: Understanding and predicting transcription factor specificity.


• DBP 5: microRNAs analysis in normal and neoplastic human B cells.


• DBP 6: Computational and functional dissection of drug targets in Melanoma.


• DBP 7: An integrated analysis of structural organization, design principles, and evolution across multiple genomes of a model developmental network.


• DBP 8: Identifying Hox protein-specific DNA-binding sites and probing their shapes.


• DBP 9: Probabilistic dynamic modeling of the ErbB signaling pathways.


• DBP 10: Master regulators of tumorigenesis and drug sensitivity in prostate cancers.