Welcome to the BIomolecular Signaling & cONtrol (BISON) Group
The BISON group within the Automatic Control Lab of ETH Zurich, headed by Prof. Heinz Koeppl is bringing together researchers from various disciplines. Currently four postdocs and three PhD students are working on algorithmic challenges that arise in computational systems biology.The group's core expertise is in the dynamic, kinetic modeling of cellular signal transduction events. The applied modeling frameworks range from detailed Smoluchowski diffusion models to Markov process and agent-based formalisms to classical nonlinear ordinary differential equations. With the incorporation of experimental data such as time-lapsed single-cell fluorescent microscopy, flow cytometric data or data from reverse protein arrays - model calibration becomes the central topic within the BISON group. Over the years Prof. Koeppl has developed different parameter inference schemes that can now be leveraged in the modeling of signaling networks.
With robust model calibration being a necessary condition to obtain predictive models, the group moreover consider new analysis methods for calibrated models - such as generalized sensitivity analyses and robustness analyses. Both methods impinge on the problem of computational drug-target identification - a research thread maintained in a collaboration with Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research (NIBR), Basel.