Session Introduction

This session focuses on the emerging fields of protein interactions in diseases and phenomics: from protein-protein interactions to supracellular phenotypes. Experimental studies indicate that protein interactions play a key role in many diseases, even in some that are considered complex or multifactorial. While altered phenotypes are among the most reliable manifestations of altered gene functions, research focused on systematic analysis of phenotype relationships to study human biology is still in its infancy. In this summary, the words phenome and phenomics are used to describe the physical totality of all traits of an organism (Mahner, J Theor Biol 1997 186:55-63). The audiences targeted by this session bring together a broad audience: bioinformaticians, systems biologists, biomedical informaticians, physicians, pharmacologists, computer scientists, statisticians, members of the pharmaceutical industry and others to share their experience and scientific findings in this area. The papers accepted for the session on Molecular Bioinformatics for Diseases comprise original research that pertain to biological scales ranging from phenomics, or 1 co-author of the manuscript * Session co-chairs and co-authors