Case for Support Epsrc Grant Application November 2006 " Engineering Systems Biology of the Cell Cycle " Part I: Previous Research Track Record

I will move to the Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University on 1 April 2007 in order to occupy the newly established Chair of Integrative Systems Biology. At the moment I work at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics where I am leading the Research Group of Molecular Network Dynamics financed by Hungarian Academy of Sciences. I have started my scientific carrier as an experimental biologist working in the field of fission yeast cell cycle (e.g. with Prof. Murdoch Mitchsion in Edinburgh). When the molecular details of cell cycle control first started to emerge in the late 1980s, I became interested in connecting the molecular and physiological aspects of the controls. I have started a long and productive collaboration with Professor John J. Tyson (Virginia Tech, Blacksburg) to develop mathematical models of the cell cycle. I was convinced, and am still convinced, that a mathematical approach is required for deciphering the intricacies of biological systems. During the last 15 years we have developed realistic computational models for the cell cycle of (budding and fission) yeasts, early embryos and mammalian cells. Our models for the eukaryotic cell cycle are among the pioneering examples of the emerging field of systems biology.