Systems Biology Thought Experiments in Human Genetics Using Artificial Life and Grammatical Evolution

Abstract

A goal of systems biology and human genetics is tounderstand how DNA sequence variations impact humanhealth through a hierarchy of biochemical, metabolic,and physiological systems. We present here aproof-of-principle study that demonstrates howartificial life in the form of agent-based simulationcan be used to generate hypothetical systems biologymodels that are consistent with pre-defined geneticmodels of disease susceptibility. Here, an evolutionarycomputing strategy called grammatical evolution is usedto discover artificial life models. The goal of thesestudies is to perform thought experiments about thenature of complex biological systems that areconsistent with genetic models of diseasesusceptibility. It is anticipated that the utility ofthis approach will be the generation of biologicalhypotheses that can then be tested using experimentalsystems.