Reconstructing effective signalling networks in T cells

T cells are important white blood cells that continually circulate in the body in search of the molecular signatures ('antigens') of infection and cancer. We (and many other labs) are trying to construct models of the T cell signalling network that can be used to predict how ligand binding (at the surface of the cell) controls gene express (in the nucleus). To do this, we stimulate T cells with various ligands (input) and measure products of gene expression (output) and then try to determine which model must be invoked to explain the data. The challenge that we face is finding 1) unique models and 2) scaling the method to many different input and outputs.