Clinical Applications and Systems Biomedicine

A single disease can be caused by multiple mechanisms. System medicine is an emerging discipline that aims to address the problem that a disease is rarely caused by malfunction of one individual gene product, but instead depends on multiple gene products that interact in a complex network. Systems medicine integrates medicine, physics, and mathematical approaches with biologic and medical insights in an iterative process to visualize the interconnected events within a disease phenotype. System medicine comprises a series of concepts and approaches that have been used successfully both to delineate novel biological mechanisms and to drive translational advances in individualized healthcare. Here, we explain how and why systems medicine, and specifically network approaches, can be used to assist clinical decision making and to identify underlying disease mechanisms. We focus on describing how to use clinical bioinformatics to uncover pathogenic mechanisms in certain diseases. We finish by discussing the current problems and limitations of network and systems approaches and suggest possible solutions.