This project is to use a novel bioinformatics approach
for modeling metabolic pathways. There are four steps to
the Principal Investigators' strategy: (1) complex
biological information is to be organized and integrated
into a single consistent metabolic knowledge base (MKB),
which will serve as a basis for the remaining steps; (2) a
novel biocatalysis classification scheme (BCS) is to be
induced from available information about catalyzed
biochemical transformations; (3) the correlations between
known protein properties and their catalytic function is
to be used to learn novel empirical mappings between
proteins and their function, which is to form the basis of
a biocatalytic assignment tool (BAT); and (4) a metabolic
pathway synthesis (MPS) system is to be designed to use
induced knowledge about metabolism to generate new
pathways between given compounds. Together, these four
modules are to form the basis of a system for modeling
metabolic pathways that can be used to solve a number of
difficult problems.
