About Us
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General
The Department of Systems Biology and Translational Medicine (SBTM) is one of four basic science departments in the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine. The medical school operates three campuses with locations in Bryan/College Station, Temple and Round Rock. The department is headquartered in the Medical Research Building on the Temple campus and additional faculty are housed in the Reynolds Medical Building on the College Station campus. The presence of SBTM faculty on the Temple campus provides an exciting opportunity to interface with clinical faculty at two major health care institutions, namely Scott & White Clinic and the Central Texas Veterans Center. SBTM faculty on the College Station campus maintain important links with key departments in the general university. Our faculty is active in thematic research units and multidisciplinary faculty within the Health Science Center and Texas A&M University. Currently SBTM consists of 18 tenured/tenure-track faculty members. Our investigators are supported by funds from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, and other grant agencies and foundations.
Systems Biology
An important strategy of the Department of Systems Biology and Translational Medicine is the application of the principles of systems biology to the human body and clinical disorders. Cells, tissues and organs are complex systems dependent on orchestration of the activities of large networks of genes, proteins and signaling molecules. The emphasis of systems biology is on understanding the emergent properties that arise from the interactions of the biomolecules, cells, tissues and organs that comprise biological networks. Dismantling the system and examining the parts independently do not adequately study this behavior. A deeper understanding of the system occurs by studying each of the parts within the context of the system as a whole. Key technologies used by our faculty for assimilating, integrating and understanding the experimental data include cell, tissue and organ-level studies, genomics, proteomics, imaging, bioinformatics, mathematical modeling, computer simulation, data-mining and highspeed computation.
Translational Medicine
Research in the department focuses on the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and gastrointestinal systems with emphasis on the molecular basis of normal and abnormal behavior of the cells and tissues composing the systems. The faculty is committed to bridging the gap between basic and clinical research through translational studies that probe human pathobiology and seek to develop therapeutic countermeasures for these abnormal conditions. Clinical disorders of interest to our faculty include: ischemia, heart failure, arterial hypertension, edema, diabetes, and osteoporosis.
Training
The faculty of the department teaches and trains medical students, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. PhD and MD/PhD training within the College of Medicine are facilitated by a multidisciplinary Medical Sciences Graduate Program that provides several tracks to accommodate student research interests. The high level of research and training interactions between faculty members is a strength of the department. This enhances individual research programs and the training of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
