Network modulation at stable states.

Advances in microarray and sequencing technologies have made possible the interrogation of biological processes at increasing levels of complexity. The underlying biomolecular networks contain large numbers of nodes, yet interactions within the networks are not known precisely. In the absence of accurate models, one may inquire if it is possible to find relationships between the states of such networks under external changes, and in particular, if such relationships can be model-independent.

On a kneading theory for gene-splicing.

Two well-known facets in protein synthesis in eukaryotic cells are transcription of DNA to pre-RNA in the nucleus and the translation of messenger-RNA (mRNA) to proteins in the cytoplasm. A critical intermediate step is the removal of segments (introns) containing ∼97% of the nucleic-acid sites in pre-RNA and sequential alignment of the retained segments (exons) to form mRNA through a process referred to as splicing. Alternative forms of splicing enrich the proteome while abnormal splicing can enhance the likelihood of a cell developing cancer or other diseases.