Computational Modeling of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis

SPRING 2013 RESEARCH INCUBATION AWARDEE 

James Galagan (Biomedical Engineering and Microbiology, College of Engineering)

The goal of this project was to develop predictive models of the complete regulatory and metabolic networks of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). The aim is to use these models to computationally study the molecular programs that enable MTB to cause human disease in order to accelerate the discovery of potential drug targets, effectors of host-pathogen interactions, and key regulators of pathogenesis.

The funding by the Hariri Institute has allowed Galagan to complete the first genome-scale MTB regulatory and metabolic network models and to validate the predictive capabilities of these models. The results of this work have been presented in several meetings, have resulted in two publications already, are the basis for at least two additional papers in preparation, and provided the preliminary results for a grant proposal to the NIH to further this work in MTB. Work has also begun to extend these methods for other important model organisms including E. coli.

This work was funded by a Hariri Research Award made in June, 2013.