Predictive models of cells are needed to understand biology, rationally design microorganisms, and precisely treat disease. Numerous challenges must be overcome to develop predictive models of entire cells. This seminar aims to stimulate discussion about how to overcome these challenges and foster an interdisciplinary cell modeling community.

Building Models and Publishing Models Seminar Series

Motivation

Each month we feature a researcher who has developed a tool or method to support complex modeling, or an expert in theoretical approaches which can be used to address modeling challenges. We will discuss experimental, computational, and mathematical challenges to modeling, current state-of-the-art techniques, and future directions for the field. We are looking for students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty who value collaborative problem-solving and are interested in learning about the most recent developments in modeling biological systems.

Join the Cell-Modeling-Seminar Google Group to receive mailing list updates or email Eran Agmon to suggest new software or modeling results that you would like to present during upcoming seminars or workshops.

Details

Day/Time
See seminar schedule below.

Location
Online using Zoom
Registration required.
Register for individual seminars below.

Format
50-minute presentation
10-minute group discussion

Organizers

Herbert Sauro
University of Washington, US

Bart Jardine
University of Washington, US

Archive

Videos of past seminars will be available at YouTube .

Suggestions

Please reach out to us by email with questions or suggestions for the seminar.

Using Bond Graphs to Ensure Thermodynamic Consistency in Biophysical Models

Dr. Peter Hunter FRS, FRSNZ
Director – Auckland Bioengineering Institute
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
4 PM Eastern | 3 PM Central | 1 PM Pacific
Register here

Dr. Hunter is a professor and the founding director of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland. He serves as co-director of Computational Physiology at Oxford University and holds honorary or visiting professorships at several universities worldwide. Dr. Hunter is a member of scientific advisory boards for various research institutes across Europe, the U.S., and the Asia-Pacific region. He will discuss the application of bond graphs in ensuring that biophysical models adhere to essential conservation laws, including mass, charge, and energy. This approach facilitates multi-scale modeling of physiological systems, encompassing biochemical, electrical, mechanical, and thermal energy transfers.

Improving Reuse with Continuous Scientific
Processes

Dr. Rowan Cockett
CEO of Curvenote
Friday, November 15, 2024
4 PM Eastern | 3 PM Central | 1 PM Pacific
Register here

Rowan Cockett, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of Curvenote, a platform advancing science communication by enabling interactive, reproducible, and richly-linked scientific content. Curvenote works with scientific societies, lab groups, and individual researchers to replace static PDFs with computationally integrated formats. Dr. Cockett’s talk, Improving Reuse with Continuous Scientific Processes, will highlight Curvenote’s collaborative efforts with organizations like the Microscopy Society of America and the American Geophysical Union to enhance science publishing through tools that support open-science, reproducibility, and interactive data sharing.

On Steroids! Modeling 11-Oxygenated Androgen Levels in Chronic Kidney Disease

Dr. Jacky Snoep 
Professor of Biochemistry
Stellenbosch University
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
2 PM Eastern | 1 PM Central | 11 AM Pacific
Register here

Professor Jacky Snoep is a leading researcher at Stellenbosch University, specializing in mechanistic modeling of health and epidemiology. He is actively engaged in Computational Systems Biology, focusing on metabolic modeling in various disease states, including malaria and type 2 diabetes. Dr. Snoep will illustrate the combined experimental and modeling approach for steroid metabolism in chronic kidney disease and polycystic ovary syndrome. The focus will be on the modeling workflow across biological organization levels: molecules → enzymes → pathway → tissue → whole body modeling in patients.

Inference of Large-Scale Boolean Models from Human-Curated, Fully Annotated Process Description Diagrams: Focus on Rheumatoid Arthritis

Dr. Anna Niarakis 
Professor of Computational Systems Biology University of Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier
Friday, December 13, 2024
12 PM Eastern | 11 AM Central | 9 AM Pacific
Register here

Dr. Anna Niarakis, Professor of Computational Systems Biology at the University of Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier, specializes in complex human diseases, with a focus on autoimmune disorders. Her talk, “Inference of Large-Scale Boolean Models from Human-Curated, Fully Annotated Process Description Diagrams. Focus on Rheumatoid Arthritis,” will introduce CaSQ, a tool developed to transform static molecular interaction maps (MIMs) into dynamic Boolean models. By converting detailed, annotated maps into standardized, interoperable models, Dr. Niarakis’s work aims to enhance understanding and reproducibility in disease modeling, with applications demonstrated in Rheumatoid Arthritis research.

Data Use in Systems Biology: FAIR Principles and Applications

Multiscale Multicellular Modeling: Challenges and Opportunities

December 1, 2023: Multiscale Multicellular Modeling: Challenges and Opportunities: Dr. T.J. Sego and Dr. James Glazier

Tools for Modeling Biological Systems Archive

April 14, 2021: An electrical engineer’s thoughts on bioengineering: Dr. Jay Bardhan

May 12, 2021: PETab and SBstoat: Dr. Joe Hellerstein and Dr. Daniel Weindl

June 9, 2021:
libOmexMeta: Dr. David Nickerson

July 14, 2021: SBML network viewer & sbmlutils: Dr. Jin Xu and Dr. Mattias König

Modeling Biology by Domain Archive

January 14, 2020: Protein Signaling: Uri Alon and Herbert Sauro

February 11, 2020: Gene Expression: Melissa Kinney and David Arnosti

March 9, 2020: Cardiac Tissue: Miguel A. Aon and Patrick Boyle

April 14, 2020: Population Dynamics: Ines Thiele and Eberhard Voit

May 12, 2020: Whole-Cell Modeling: Jonathan Karr

June 9, 2020: Neurological Systems: Bill Lytton

July 14, 2020:
Cancer: Paola Vera-Licona

August 11, 2020: Metabolism: Matthaias König and Vissily Hatzimanikatis

September 8, 2020: Whole-cell Modeling: Luis Serrano and Markus Covert

Modeling Software Workshop Archive

October 2, 2019: Model Simulation

Paul Macklin

Associate Professor, Indiana University Bloomington

PhysiCell

Veronica Porubsky

Ph.D. Fellow, University of Washington

Tellurium/ libRoadRunner

September 4, 2019: Data Aggregation

Yasset Perez-Riverol

Proteomics Team Coordinator, European Bioinformatics Institute
OmicsDI

Yosef Roth

PhD Fellow, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Datanator

August 7, 2019: Model Validation

Rick Gerkin

Associate Research Professor, Arizona State University

SciDash/SciUnit/NeuronUnit

Christian Lieven

Postdoctoral Fellow, Technical University of Denmark

memote

July 3, 2019: Modeling Languages

Carlos Lopez

Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University

PySB

Morgan Madec 

Associate Professor, University of Strasbourg

SPICE for Biochemical and Biological Systems

June 5, 2019: Parameter Estimation

Victor Zavala 

Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Scalable Nonlinear Programming Framework for Parameter Estimation

Joel Paulson 

Assistant Professor, Ohio State University

Parameter Estimation and Model Reduction

Cell Modeling Seminar Archive

April 2, 2019: Jacky Snoep 

Professor, University of Stellenbosch

Data and model management using the FAIRDOMHub

March 5, 2019: Andrew Hessel 

CEO, Humane Genomics

GP-write and the future of engineering living organisms: a personal perspective

February 5, 2019: Barbara Bakker 

Professor, University Medical Center Groningen

Computational models and network-based drug design for metabolic disease

January 8, 2019: Stephen Larson 

Co-founder, OpenWorm Foundation and CEO, MetaCell

OpenWorm: Building a whole animal simulation

Leveraging Qualitative Observations of System Behavior in Model Development

Bill Hlavacek
Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory
December 4, 2018

Leveraging Public Data Repositories for
Cell Modeling

Sheriff Rahuman
Project Leader, European Bioinformatics Institute
November 6, 2018