Algebraic systems biology: Wnt signaling as a case study Seminar

In this talk I will focus on a specific signaling pathway of gene regulation and present different approaches for analysing models from systems biology. The focus of these techniques will be a set of models of the Wnt signaling pathway, which is involved in development, adult tissue cells and cancer.

We propose a new mechanistic model that includes spatial localization, compare this model and existing models from the literature to data. We apply statistical and algebraic approaches-- focusing on both parameter-dependent and parameter-independent methods to compare and reject models. We use ideas from numerical algebraic geometry, combinatorics and statistics to better understand the Wnt signaling system and we also inform design of experiments. The techniques are applicable to other problems in systems biology.