Teaching computational systems biology with an eye on quantitative systems pharmacology at the undergraduate level: Why do it, who would take it, and what should we teach?

Abstract

Computational systems biology (CSB) is a field that emerged primarily as the product of research activities. As such, it grew in several directions in a distributed and uncoordinated manner making the area appealing and fascinating. The idea of not having to follow a specific path but instead creating one fueled innovation. As the field matured, several interdisciplinary graduate programs emerged attempting to educate future generations of computational systems biologists. These educational initiatives coordinated the dissemination of information across student populations that had already decided to specialize in this field. However, we are now entering an era where CSB, having established itself as a valuable research discipline, is attempting the next major step: Entering undergraduate curricula. As interesting as this endeavor may sound, it has several difficulties, mainly because the field is not uniformly defined. In this manuscript, we argue that this diversity is a significant advantage and that several incarnations of an undergraduate-level CSB biology course could, and should, be developed tailored to programmatic needs. In this manuscript, we share our experiences creating a course as part of a Biomedical Engineering program.

What’s next for computational systems biology?

“…Intriguingly, computational systems biology has developed over the past two decades in a somewhat uncoordinated fashion, driven by research into a smorgasbord of topics. This almost uninhibited opportunity to advance in novel areas made the field very attractive (Androulakis, 2022). Beyond the application of systems biology to challenging problems in biology, medicine, agriculture, environmental stewardship and other areas of great societal importance, the goals of computational systems biology fall into three very broad categories, the first two of which, intriguingly, point in opposite directions.…”

“…Because systems biology is applicable to numerous problem spaces, it offers the opportunity to custom tailor a course to a specific topic or home department. Examples include a course dedicated to analyzing the systemic nature of a specific disease of interest (Voit et al, 2012) and a systems biology course with emphasis on quantitative systems pharmacology (Androulakis, 2022).…”

Life scientists improve QSP model quality and impact

“…A 2018 industry-wide survey of pharmaceutical companies revealed that fewer than one in 10 QSP team members identified as biologists; most QSP modelers have backgrounds in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Engineering, and Computational Biology/Bioinformatics ( Nijsen et al, 2018 ). Job descriptions and education requirements for QSP modelers often require software development skills and training in clinical pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, or applied mathematics but require little or no biological sciences background ( Androulakis, 2022 ; Zhang et al, 2022b ; Gallo, 2022 ). In our capacity as consultants interacting with modeling groups in pharmaceutical companies, we have observed that it is exceedingly rare for life scientists to be core members of modeling teams despite some recommendations ( Leil and Bertz, 2014 ; Aghamiri et al, 2022 ).…”