Enabling systems biology: A scientific problem-solving environment

Biologists today are striving to solve multidisciplinary, complex systems biology questions. To successfully address these questions, software tools must be created to allow scientists to capture data and information, to share this information, and to analyze the data as elements of a complete system. At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, we are creating the Computational Cell Environment, a biology-centered collaborative problem-solving environment with the goal of providing data retrieval, management, and analysis through all aspects of biological study. A horizontal prototype called SysBioPSE, demonstrates this vision. Our initial work is centered on developing the Distributed Data Management and Analysis subsystem, which is a specific tool for retrieving data from multiple heterogeneous data stores, providing storage facilities that support pedigree tracking and data and information analysis under a common user interface. With time, many such individual subsystems will be developed and integrated to fulfill the Computational Cell Environment vision.