ChoosyUser

Thanks for doing the Coursera course! I'm enrolled and enjoying the experience thoroughly!

I have a chemistry degree and have about 10yrs experience in the pharma industry. Specifically, I have a lot of experience modelling PK profiles. But we generally use modelling to generate a hypothesis and then follow up with experimentation to see if the hypothesis is valid. Or if we find contradictory evidence we can use the new data to help refine our model. Generally, for small molecules a reasonable model with decent predictive power can be achieved with sufficient effort.

As someone with less Systems Biology background, can you comment on how good current biological models are? Can they currently be used as a means of generating a hypothesis, or are they too rudimentary at this point. i.e. What percent of cellular or subcellular phenomenon are currently predicatable using Systems Biology models?

I also live in the NYC area, are there any live lectures or courses you would recommend to enhance the Systems Biology Coursera education?

Or maybe Open-Source volunteer groups that we could participate in to get some hands on experience with Systems Biology?

Thanks!!

Do you think Systems Biology will replace medical doctors in the long term (I'm talking >100yrs from now)?

It seems like M.D.s (real human beings) are basically a walking and talking Systems Biology black box. By that you can tell them, "Drug X inhibits Protein Y, or Signalling Pathway Z....how would this translate into a clinical observation?" and they would be able to make a fairly educated guess or prediction. This seems like the crux of Systems Biology...as in we want to ask the SB Black Box a question about molecular level interactions and get back an answer about how it translates to clinical level observations/phenotype/etc.

How long do you think it will be before the state of the art "Systems Biology Black Box" is better at predictions than a state of the art "Human Medical Doctor"? Or do you see them as serving different functions?

Thank for the answer to my previous comment!! If you have a chance to answer this one too, I'd love to hear the long-long-term vision you have for Systems Biology. Your previous answer gave me great insight into the current state of the art :)