What is MaCSBio?
MaCSBio (Maastricht Centre of Systems Biology) is a research institute which emerged from Maastricht University, working in the interdisciplinary field of Systems Biology. MaCSBio aims to develop mathematical and computational models to predict or model complex biological systems (MaCSBio, 2019). Hereby, virtual organisms are designed, such as a virtual human body, on which predictions about the influence of different conditions on the body and their resulting outcome can be made or the potential influence of a drug or a different kind of treatment can be shown (MaCSBio, 2019).
Why did we approach MaCSBio?
Our team visited MaCSBio to present the RocKit and RocCloud and to discuss future modelling ideas. Because MaCSBio is an institute with scientists from many different research areas and computer sciences, they can analyse and evaluate our project from different points of view and could also be the future users of our RocKit. Therefore, their input is highly valuable to improve our project and to point out possibilities and drawbacks we might have overlooked.
The outcome of our meeting
A team of scientists from different scientific fields from MaCSBio gave feedback on our project and suggested possible applications and improvements. A fact that was especially emphasized was that the RocKit is such a versatile tool that it is especially important to stress this fact and come up with different examples from different areas of application. Furthermore, we discussed modelling possibilities of the RocKit mechanisms that introduce mutations of cell surface receptors in yeast cells and how a virtual model could help to predict the outcome of a mutation induced by the RocKit. A potential introduction of an algorithm was discussed on how the RocKit computer model could help through collected data of previously analysed RocKit induced mutations to speed up the process of the receptor generation in the yeast cells and predict the time it takes for a specific target molecule to generate the receptor.
What we learned from this cooperation
As an overall result of this meeting we saw that RocKit is a project that is needed in many areas of scientific research and it has the potential to develop into a start-up. However, many steps need to be done to optimize our RocKit into a feasible kit. After this meeting we established different examples of applications of the RocKit to approach scientists from many different fields and show the diversity of our kit. Since MaCSBio is a Systems Biology institute with computer programmers as well as scientists from different biological fields, they could help to establish and improve the modelling part in the future. Furthermore, MaCSBio aims to research the influence of different factors on the human body, the RocKit could help in the future with this research as tool to generate and model different kinds of human cell surface receptors to test the effects and side effects of different drugs. The obtained data could then be used for further in silico modelling. MaCSBio turned out as the perfect cooperation partner for our team, since they are experts in the field of analysing wet lab data into databases and in silico modelling which can give advice for our project, but they could also be possible users and stakeholders of the RocKit.
