Toxicoinformatics for Systems Toxicology

Systems biology and systems toxicology mean different things to different people. To some, both disciplines focus on the creation of biological networks, and may be called network biology. To others, these disciplines conjure images of mathematical models to explain biological phenomena. Others will take a stance that it is really the combination of these philosophies, while there are others who believe that they are no more than the integration of omics technologies with other biological disciplines. Regardless of where you fall in this spectrum there is one universal truth: investigators require a significant amount of data to perform systems biology and systems toxicology. This chapter discusses some ideas with respect to data management, including data security, as well as databases and data warehouses. The chapter closes with some discussion of modeling and gene regulatory element identification. After reading this chapter the reader should have a better idea of some of the issues with respect to data management and analysis in systems biology and systems toxicology. Keywords: bioinformatics; database; data management; machine learning; toxicoinformatics