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Statistical Mechanics in Systems Biology: Villa Orlandi, Anacapri ~ May 29 - June 1, 2012 |
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Paolo Bianco Department of Experimental Medicine, Sapienza Universita' di Roma (Italy) Understanding stem cell systems – wet, dry, and humid biology Current approaches to understanding the unique kinetics of stem cell physiology rely almost entirely on reductionistic molecular approaches. This is made paradoxically complex by the general poor understanding of the very physical identity of experimentally proven or merely postulated stem cell functions in different organ systems. Key, defining concepts of stem cell biology, such as self-renewal and “niche” effects, have thus escaped precise dissection. The recognition of the identity of stem cell populations and their niches in specific vertebrate organ systems, such as bone and muscle, opens the possibility to model a number of key physiological events such as retention, self-renewal, lineage generation, all the way to ultimate organ growth, shape and structure, something so far only possible for plant systems. Specific examples of how and why wet-biology generated insight could, or needs to, access modeling through what kind of data sets will be discussed with the full intellectual biases that can be found in the notes of an anatomist. |
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