报告1
时间：10月21日下午1：30Pm
地点：校本部现代物理中心阶梯教室
Title:Functional Systems Biology: a process-centered approach to the study of liver fibrosis regression

Hanry Yu
Study of biological functions in living organisms has relied primarily on identifications of molecules and molecular interaction networks over the past few decades. Such reductionist view might not yield realistic understanding of the biological phenotypes or processes (either physiological or pathological). An analogy is to understand how a car moves: we cannot just take the car apart, identify all the parts, map the interactions of the parts, and re-assemble the parts back into a car, and hoping to understand the process of a car movement. Instead, we focus on functional decomposition of the phenotypic process (in our example, we study liver fibrosis and regression) into discrete steps where we can define each step with molecules and interaction networks; and reconstruct the steps with quantitative descriptors or equations to define the entire dynamic functional process. The process-centered approach (as opposed to molecule-centered approach) will have tremendous impact on drug discovery process of the future. Computation and Systems Biologists (CSB) and bioengineers will play a critical role to link the molecular biologists/biochemists and the computational scientists in this hierarchical decomposition and reconstruction approach to tackle biological and biomedical problems of the coming decades. We have assembled a team of experts in relevant disciplines of biology, bioengineering, computational and medical sciences in Singapore and MIT to drive this major endeavor. We have also built an international graduate program on Computation and Systems Biology to train graduate students for the new challenges in this emerging approach to basic and applied biomedical research. In this seminar, I would use specific examples of liver fibrosis regression to illustrate how such an interdisciplinary team is working on this process-centered approach to improve our understanding of how a liver can be damaged beyond repair; and how our fundamental molecular information can be linked systematically and quantitatively to yield improved understanding of the functional mechanism and help us to identify appropriate strategies for future therapies.

About the speaker: Dr. Hanry Yu is a Professor  in Physiology, YLL School of Medicine, National University Health System; a group leader at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, A*STAR (a national laboratory), Ag Co-Chair of the Computation and Systems Biology Program (Singapore-MIT Alliance) and a visiting associate professor, Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He graduated with PhD in Cell Biology from Duke University (US), and postdoc from EMBL (Germany). He has directed major education and research programs as well as national facilities in Singapore over the past decades; published extensively in multidisciplinary research areas such as biomaterials, tissue engineering, bioimaging, and cell biology. He takes pride in training many outstanding graduate students, with particular emphasis on the inter-disciplinary PhD education for leadership positions in academia and industry. He is often consulted for international institutions and companies.

报告2
时间：10月21日下午2：30Pm
地点：校本部现代物理中心阶梯教室
Title: Multidisciplinary Research in Computation and Systems Biology – Through the Looking Glass of SMA

In this talk, we will introduce the exciting field of computation and systems biology and highlight how this paradigm is changing the way we do research in biology. Particularly, we will highlight the multi-disciplinary nature of CSB research and illustrate this with representative research projects our current SMA students are investigating.  We will stress on the benefits such approach can bring to our aspiration of improving health care and disease treatment. Finally, we will summarize fundamental attributes a potential SMA CSB student must possess in order to be successful in this program and the challenges one may face in this program.