Information Systems and Network Analysis of Gene Regulation and Metabolism

Between September Sh and September loth 1999 The First International Summer Scl~ool of Information Systems and Network Analysis of Gene Regulution and Metabolism was organized in Magdeburg. Post-genomic methods in molecular biology generate large amounts of expression data, which require computational methods for their storage, management, and analysis. Knowledge databases, containing information on genes not only as genome constituents but also as therefore an elements of regulatory, signaling, and metabolic pathways, are essential resource for "reverse engineering" regulatory and metabolic networks in the cell. An updated illustrative list of different methodologies available on the internet can be obtained at (see http://wwwiti.cs.unimagdeburg.de/iti-bm/dagstuhl/demos.html). The conclusion when looking at such a variety of approaches is that in order to support the analysis of gene regulation and metabolic network control we need distributed data access integrated with visualization, simulation, and analysis tools. Based on the experience of two international Dagstuhl Seminars on this topic (1995 and 1998 Schloss Dagstuhl with URL: http://www.dag.uni-sb.de) we invited scientists to prepare specific courses address through issues. Sequencing technology has produced an exponential growth in the amount of data on DNA and protein sequences. However, in the case of the human genome project ca. 64" 10**9 bases will be available at the end of the year 2001. That means that to publish the human genome will require approximately 1000 books of 1000 pages. This example highlights the imports electronic representation of molecular data. The internet is a powerful medium which allows worldwide access to molecular information systems. Therefore, the internet could be the main catalyst for the development of molecular database and information systems. Today the backbone of