{"id":13475,"date":"2017-10-03T11:54:17","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T15:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/?p=13475"},"modified":"2026-01-07T15:14:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:14:43","slug":"13475","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/2017\/10\/03\/13475\/","title":{"rendered":"Center for Network Systems Biology Grand Opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Emili Heads New Center for Network Systems Biology
\n<\/strong>from BU Today
\n10.03.2017\u00a0<\/span>By Sara Rimer<\/a><\/span>\"AndrewAndrew Emili, with a joint appointment as a professor in the MED biochemistry department and the CAS biology department, is the director of the new University-wide Center for Network Systems Biology. Photo by Cydney Scott<\/p>\n

\n
\n

As a McGill University undergraduate, Andrew Emili<\/a> earned money putting together IKEA furniture. The assembly instructions may have stymied his customers, but at least instructions existed. That\u2019s more than can be said for Emili\u2019s current challenge: mapping the network of interactions between the tens of thousands of proteins encoded in the human genome.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like trying to put together IKEA furniture when you\u2019ve lost the assembly instructions,\u201d says Emili, a molecular systems biologist who arrived at Boston University from the University of Toronto in July. \u201cYou see bolts, you see holes, and you know the relationship between the two, but not which ones go where.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emili, jointly appointed to the School of Medicine biochemistry department and the College of Arts & Sciences biology department, is director of the new University-wide Center for Network Systems Biology (CNSB).<\/p>\n

Human health and development depend on the network of protein interactions, he says. Yet despite rapid advances in genomics, scientists know little about how these interactions work and how faulty interactions lead to disease. He uses proteomics, the study of the protein products of genes, and mass spectrometry, a tool that can separate individual proteins from their connections, as well as bioinformatics and other molecular genetic and genomic technologies, to create maps of protein interactions. He then makes his maps, which he describes as assembly instructions for molecular networks, available to the broader research community. His ultimate goal, he says, is to translate this basic knowledge into novel diagnostic and therapeutic tools for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer\u2019s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.<\/p>\n

Emili\u2019s vision for the CNSB, he says, is \u201cto create a highly collaborative, multidisciplinary research hub that tackles important fundamental questions in the field by forging new links with interested researchers across both BU campuses, the greater Boston area, and the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The departments of biochemistry and biology will host a reception today on the Medical Campus\u2014open to students and faculty from both campuses\u2014to mark the opening of the center and Emili\u2019s appointment as director, at the Silvio O. Conte Medical Research Center, 71 E. Concord St., from 3 to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n

Emili is widely regarded as a leader in proteomics, mass spectrometry, and network systems biology, says David Harris<\/a>, a MED professor and chair of biochemistry. He says Emili\u2019s work with mass spectrometry will complement that of Catherine E. Costello<\/a>, a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, a MED professor of biochemistry, and director of the Center for Biomedical Mass Spectrometry. With Emili\u2019s arrival, Harris says, \u201cwe have an incredibly strong presence in multiple kinds of mass spectrometry.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the CNSB, as well as Emili\u2019s lab<\/a>, will be housed within the biochemistry department, he will serve as a bridge between the Medical and Charles River Campuses and will also have an office in the Life Sciences and Engineering Building\u2014and eventually some lab space\u2014at 24 Cummington Mall and teach classes in the biology department.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will collaborate widely across the University,\u201d says Harris. \u201cThis recruitment from the start was a joint effort of the medical school and the Charles River Campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really great to have him come in and be a leader,\u201d says Kim McCall<\/a>, a CAS professor and chair of biology, noting that her department has recently hired three junior faculty in systems biology. \u201cHis research is highly collaborative. He\u2019s already talking to people in chemistry. He\u2019s done work related to evolution, so that bridges with our scientists who are doing evolutionary biology. He\u2019ll be important to bioinformatics on the CRC as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Emili\u2019s<\/a><\/p>\n

A map of human protein interactions, from a 2012 Cell<\/em> study, a collaboration between Emili and Edward Marcotte of the University of Texas, Austin. The spheres, or dots, are proteins; the lines are interactions between proteins. Emili explains: \u201cThe network layout reflects local clustering of proteins to form specific macromolecules\u2014stable complexes\u2014while the broader connectivity between these assemblies shows crosstalk underlying biological circuits and cellular processes. Many of the complexes identified in the study were previously unknown and\/or have links to human disease, providing valuable insights into pathobiological mechanisms.\u201d Image courtesy of Emili<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cA Google or Facebook of biology\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u201cIf you really want to understand the cell,\u201d Emili says, \u201cyou have to understand what the protein molecules do\u2014how they interact, what their functions are, how they\u2019re regulated. The DNA is the code or the raw information, but the proteins are the molecules that are the building blocks. They\u2019re not just abstract information. You can think of them as the construction workers in the cell.\u201d<\/p>\n

He thinks of his team of researchers, he says, \u201cas a Google or Facebook of biology,\u201d mapping social networks of proteins that provide clues to how proteins function. \u201cProteins interact functionally and physically in very dynamic and intriguing ways,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s about who knows who and who\u2019s connected to whom.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a disease state, these networks are often perturbed or modified or they fail in some way,\u201d he says, \u201cand if we want to reverse a disease or prevent it, we have to understand how the networks go awry and what something looks like when it\u2019s broken and what it looks like when it\u2019s not broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2015, Emili and Edward Marcotte<\/a>, a University of Texas, Austin, professor of molecular biosciences, led a landmark Nature<\/em> study<\/a> that revealed tens of thousands of new protein interactions across nine animal species\u2014baker\u2019s yeast, amoebas, sea anemones, flies, worms, sea urchins, frogs, mice, and humans. Using mass spectrometry to analyze cell samples from each species, the researchers found which proteins worked together in networks and compared their structures across species. Their map provided clues to how these protein associations evolved over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrew\u2019s work is highly relevant to a broad range of questions in both basic and applied biomedical research,\u201d says Michael Sorenson<\/a>, a CAS professor of biology. As an evolutionary biologist, Sorenson says, he particularly appreciates Emili\u2019s 2015 Nature<\/em>study and how it \u201cbeautifully illustrates the way in which animal diversity has evolved by building upon and tweaking a common set of fundamental cellular processes that has functioned in much the same way for a billion years or more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emili came to BU from the University of Toronto, where he was a professor of molecular genetics and the Council of Ontario Universities Ontario Research Chair in Biomarker Discovery<\/a>. He was also a principal investigator and a founding member of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research<\/a>. He earned a PhD in molecular and medical genetics from the University of Toronto in 1997 and pursued postdoctoral studies as a Damon Runyon\/Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fellow with cell geneticist Leland Hartwell<\/a>, a Nobel laureate, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center<\/a>\u00a0in Seattle, where Hartwell is president and director emeritus. During that same period, Emili learned protein mass spectrometry with John Yates III<\/a>, then a University of Washington School of Medicine associate professor of molecular biotechnology, now a Scripps Research Institute professor of chemical physiology.<\/p>\n

\u201cBU has tremendous resources,\u201d says Emili, \u201cand given the widespread community support, I think the center can leapfrog ahead and chart out some exciting new terrain to claim and explore.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see what riches this inititiative will yield.\u201d<\/p>\n

The School of Medicine biochemistry department and College of Arts & Sciences biology department will host a reception, open to students and faculty from both the Charles River Campus and the Medical Campus, to mark the opening of the Center for Network Systems Biology and Andrew Emili\u2019s appointment as director, today, Tuesday, October 3, from 3 to 5 p.m., at the Silvio O. Conte Medical Research Center, 71 E. Concord St., on the Medical Campus.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Emili Heads New Center for Network Systems Biology from BU Today 10.03.2017\u00a0By Sara RimerAndrew Emili, with a joint appointment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[104,100],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13475"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13485,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13475\/revisions\/13485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/biochemcellbio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}