Duke University | Howard Hughes Undergraduate Program
Overview of Program
Integrated Systems: Integrative Sciences at Duke University
In summer 2006, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute awarded $1.9 million to Duke University to develop a comprehensive program linking undergraduate biology education to emerging systems-level transformations in science research. Integrated Systems: Integrative Sciences will foster the development of a systems perspective within biology at Duke and will build new educational collaborations between Arts and Sciences, the Medical Center, and the School of Engineering.
This fifth consecutive Hughes award supports Duke’s development of an educational framework of curricular offerings and mentored, multidisciplinary, research experiences that:
- incorporate a systems perspective into the undergraduate biology curriculum as well as the electrical and computer engineering curricula – from first-year courses introducing systems concepts and quantitative modeling to upper-level linked biology and engineering courses and capstone experiences;
- enhance current undergraduate research programs in biology, math, computer science, and engineering and introduce advanced research opportunities that integrate undergraduates with graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty in multidisciplinary, mentored research teams;
- refocus our Teachers Workshop to emphasize the power of mathematical modeling to address biological questions;
- continue our successful Research Fellows and Precollege programs.
Sarah Wallace, Research Fellow 2005
What is Systems Biology?
Systems Biology is a developing area of scientific inquiry to improve understanding of an entire biological system’s structure and dynamic properties. Research in this area addresses multiple levels of organization, including molecular, cellular and physiological properties and the interactions among them. Systems-level investigations require a conceptual framework and the tools of physiology, molecular biology, genetics and genomics, mathematics, and statistics, chemistry, computer science, and engineering. These investigations require close collaborations, utilizing the collective skills of faculty across disciplines, and the integration of theoretical, experimental, and computational approaches to develop and test physical and quantitative models of biological processes.
Examples of questions being addressed at Duke within the framework of Integrated Systems: Integrative Sciences at Duke University include:
- Cell Systems: the multi-step regulation of the replication cycle in yeast cells;
- Genomics: the dynamics of gene expression on mammalian chromosomes, both before and during the process of epigenetic silencing due to X chromosome inactivation;
- Information Signaling and ProcessingI: the application of signal processing concepts to address biological system, specifically the challenge posed in the development of cochlear implants and how sensing and processing can be integrated in a neural prosthetic system;
- Modeling Biological Systems: the gene regulatory networks in Arabidopsis thaliana root;
- Models for Genetics and Evolution of Complex Systems: the development of mathematical models to describe the details of specific complex systems (e.g., folic acid metabolism) in which all components are known and in which the dynamics and kinetics have been studied experimentally.