Biotechnology Forums

Full Version: Need to develop an integrated model for metabolic regulation
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
The direction of research is determined largely by many factor including current social need and key scientific problems in specific areas. We witnessed a prolific development in all areas of science. For the first time in human history the generation of data becomes enormous and is very difficult to manage. There has been growing need to interpret the data that is being generated. The development of data in different field of biological science has been reflected in the emergence of new discipline described by 'omics'. This became feasible because of the development of high throughput technology such as micro-array and metabolomics . At this junction it is relevant to ask the question whether we are the on the right direction in term the focus of current scientific development?

One of the main key factor in determining the direction of research is the profitability of the investment. There has been huge investment in the areas of science where there is scope of high return. As a result there are areas which becomes neglected. The question is whether we continue to afford the market driven research.

One of the fundamental area in biology is the metabolic regulation. Currently the understanding of human metabolism and physiology is based on the research done on rodent for example in rat and mice. Most of the current understanding of metabolic regulation came from the studies done on the rodent. Since the basic metabolism is similar across the species, so these studies has become corner stone for human biology. This area has been considered as has been understood and not much attention is being paid about the presence of difference in metabolic regulation across the species. Probably this is the single most reason for failure of many new drugs during clinical trial.

Though there is much similarity among the different species because of the evolution. The basic metabolic machinery across the species is by and large is the same. But this may not be true for the way they process the environmental signal. That means that metabolic regulation might be different among the species. Rats do not have a gall bladder which makes this species different from human in term of bile processing and consequently there exits difference in metabolic regulation in the processes which are dependent on bile. Similarly the lipoprotein profile in rat and human are different. Rat's plasma lipoprotein profile is characterized by high high density lipoprotein (HDL) where in human low density lipoprotein (LDL) is predominant. This points to the fact that there exits a difference in the metabolic regulation which mediates this phenotype, Without understanding these difference, can we say that we know the metabolism of the species to a fair degree?

Biotechnology techniques are being used to exploit the similarity in the metabolism across species. This techniques can be used in understanding the difference in the metabolic regulation operating across the species. At present the research community use different disease model to understand the different problem such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It is doubtful how much successful this strategy is in the development of the therapeutic interventions. The enormous amount of data are being generated by high throughput technology. At present there has not been a convincing framework to analyze the data. This has a negative impact on the decision making process. One of the reasons for the lack of convincing framework is the lack of understanding about the metabolic regulation.

The understanding of metabolic regulation across the species will help us to understand the pathological state in human. It will guide us to decide when and how we should extrapolate the findings on different species to human. This underlines the need to develop a integrated model of metabolism. In absence of proper understanding of difference of regulation among across the species, there can not be a thorough understanding of the data being generated. This is also true for the understanding of the relation between genotype and phenotype. This will help to analyze the genomic data better.

The current state of over dependence on some particular species for the data generation may not yield the correct solution. We need to focus on the difference existing across the species in term of regulatory mechanism. We should give the proper concentration on the areas which need attention. There should be a realization to identify the issues in the decision making processes which affects the development of the solution society is looking for. This should strengthened the ability to design new approach to address the difficult problems. It is always easy to state the problem rather than to provide the solution. The direction of the research should not be heavily determined by the market consideration but due attention also need to be given for the fundamental research.