The Systems Bioinformatics group
The Systems Bioinformatics group was founded in August 2008 and focuses on systems biology with a special focus on integrative bioinformatics. It aims at forming bridges between the classical bottom-up approaches in systems biology and the more data-driven approaches in classical bioinformatics. We combine experimental, modeling and theoretical approaches to study cellular physiology, with an emphasis on metabolic networks.
Currently, the group consists of 17 people, more about whom can be found here.
Embedding
The Systems Bioinformatics group forms together with the Bioinformatics group of Prof. Jaap Heringa the core of the Institute for Integrative Bioinformatics VU (IBIVU). The Teusink group is housed in the section Molecular Cell Physiology, co-headed by Prof. Hans Westerhoff, and is part of the Department of Molecular Cell Biology of the Faculty for Earth and Life Sciences (FALW). Together with other groups at the VU University Amsterdam (VUA), the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI) and the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF), all located in Amsterdam, we are part of the Netherlands Institute for Systems Biology (NISB).
Funding
Apart from Faculty support, our group receives funding from:
- Kluyver Centre for Genomics of Industrial Fermentation (Kluyver Centre), part of the Netherlands Consortium Systems Biology (NCSB)
- Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre (NBIC), BioRange project on constraint-based modeling
- NWO-Computational Life Sciences (NWO-CLS) on understanding metabolic regulation
- 2 STW projects (STW), one on optimization of L. lactis as cell factory, another one on population heterogeneity in L. lactis.
- EC FP7 Network of Excellence UniCellSys
- SysMO-LAB Systems Biology of MicroOrganisms project on comparative systems biology
Education
Training of a new generation of (systems) biologists with computational skills and a systems-oriented mind set is essential for the advance modern, quantitative biology and medicine. We offer a 2-year master in Systems Biology including lectures in experimental biology, computational biology and bioinformatics (master systems biology), as well as internships with dry and wet components.
