Communications of the ACM
From Beaker to Bits: Unique Collaboration Between Biologists and Computer Scientists Creates Computational Model of Human Tissue
Rensselaer professor George Plopper
Credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers have developed a computational model called cell graphs that links the structure of human tissue to its corresponding biological function.
The researchers say the tool brings the power of computational science to the fight against human diseases, and they say their work will serve as a new method to understand and predict relationships between the cells and tissues in the human body. The model uses computation to determine whether a tissue sample is cancerous or not, rather than relying on the human eye as is currently done by pathologists.
"With this new analysis we can explain how individual cells function in the system while still focusing on the entire system as a whole," says Rensselaer professor George Plopper.
Graph theory simplifies the system into a series of dots and lines with the dots being the cells and the lines their interactions. The program links and compares the accuracy of data from human tissue samples from histology with those grown in the controlled laboratory setting.
"Scientists need to trust computational methodologies and that trust will only come when we go back to the basic biology that can be fed into the modeling and tested," says professor Bulent Yener.
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