The human genome is a vast parts list for the inner works of our biology. It codes for thousands of proteins that make us who we are and keep our bodies up and running. Though that parts list was worked out a decade ago, its utility remains limited by the fact that we still don’t have a wiring diagram to go with it. That is, we don’t know how all the parts interact.
“This is where true richness of phenomena originates,” said Baruch Barzel, a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Complex Network Research, the lab run by world-renowned network scientist and Distinguished University Professor Albert-László Barabasi. “Disease mechanisms, as well as our healthy functionality, are all encoded not just in the genes and proteins, but also in how they interact to form a network.”
