Systems Biology - “The ability to obtain, integrate and analyze complex data from multiple experimental sources using interdisciplinary tools”.

Epilepsy  is a disease of recurrent seizures that affects up to 1% of the world’s population.  Yet it remains one of the least understood human disorders in the most complicated of human organs, the brain.  As a means to understand and develop improved diagnostic and treatment strategies, we have formed an interdisciplinary collaborative project that uses the power of systems and computational biology to understand human epilepsy through its electrical, anatomical, and molecular features. 

This work has lead to the discovery of a ‘final common pathway’ of genes that are consistently induced at human epileptic foci and now serve as invaluable molecular markers and drug discovery targets.  We have recently been funded by the President of Wayne State University to build a user-friendly database of human epilepsy that links electrical, anatomical, and molecular features of human epilepsy that brings the latest advances in bioinformatics workflow.  All of this work truly reflects the human condition as it is made possible through our far-sighted patients that have allowed us to study portions of their brains removed for the treatment of medically refractory epilepsy.