Systems Biology aims to define biological problems using the language of
mathematics. With the advancement of high throughput technologies and their ever
expanding capabilities to generate large scale “-omics” data, the basic goal of systems
biology would be to integrate global data sets and develop a coherent understanding to the
biological system under study. Biological interactions are highly complex where the
components of the systems are connected in a highly intricate manner. Mathematical
modeling plays a major role in capturing the dynamics of each and every component in the
system, simplifying complex biological networks. In the field of infectious diseases, system
level understanding is essential to gain valuable insights into the pathogenic processes. A
thorough understanding of the perturbations in biological networks may aid in prioritizing
of the drug targets. Schistosomiasis and Trypanosomiasis remain as the two neglected
tropical diseases affecting human population worldwide. The central theme of this work
revolves around developing a systems level understanding of the lipid metabolism of these
two parasites, abstracting complex biological processes as a collection of interacting
functions driven in time by a set of discrete biological events. An insight has been laid into
the importance and application of systems biology which is emerging as an amalgamation
of two important sciences “Mathematics” and “Biology”.
Keywords: Drug repositioning, gene regulatory network, graph theory, kinetic
laws, kinetic modeling, mathematical modeling, metabolic pathway, neglected
tropical diseases, schistosomiasis, stochastic simulation, systems biology,
trypanosomiasis.
