MAGNet: Driving Biological Projects

Editor's note: The MAGNet center formally closed in July 2016, following the mandatory conclusion of its grant after more than 10 years of activity. The pages in this section constitute an archive of its work.

The Driving Biological Projects (DBPs) target important biological questions and are structured as collaborative efforts between computational, experimental and clinical researchers. They provide the requirements that drive the basic and applied computational research in the Center. They also act as the testbed for assessing the usefulness of the Center's software tools by offering a biologically relevant context for their application and evaluation.

MAGNet supports 10 DBPs representing a wide range of biomedical problems:

DPB 1: Structural and energetic basis of cadherin binding specificity

DBP 2: Regulatory modules in normal and transformed B-cells

DBP 3: Genomic and bioinformatics solutions to the search for genetic determinants of common heritable disorders

DBP 4: Understanding and predicting transcription factor specificity

DBP 5: microRNAs analysis in normal and neoplastic human B cells

DBP 6: Computational and functional dissection of drug targets in Melanoma

DBP 7: An integrated analysis of structural organization, design principles, and evolution across multiple genomes of a model developmental network

DBP 8: Identifying Hox protein-specific DNA-binding sites and probing their shapes

DBP 9: Probabilistic dynamic modeling of the ErbB signaling pathways

DBP 10: Master regulators of tumorigenesis and drug sensitivity in prostate cancers

DBP 11: Small molecule-based reprogramming of cell differentiation