UK and Japanese scientists join forces to construct the Virtual Microbe
Monday 9 November 2009
Microbes are the most numerous organisms on the planet. They are responsible for disease but are also essential for life. Yet despite the invaluable role they play in our lives we know surprisingly little about how they work. A group of leading UK and Japanese researchers, including Professor Johnjoe McFadden of the University of Surrey, aims to change all that with the construction of the world’s first virtual microbe
The scientists recently met at a Microbial Systems Biology workshop held in Osaka, Japan. The meeting was sponsored by the UK BBSRC and Japanese JST Research Councils and organized by Professor McFadden and Professor Kazuyuki Shimizu of the Kyushu Institute of Technology. The aim was to identify complementary approaches that could be used to establish synergistic collaborative projects between Japanese and UK researchers.
The meeting was a great success. The synergies and complementarities identified at the meeting suggested that, by integrating their activities, the groups present at the Osaka meeting (and additional systems biology groups in Japan and the UK), should now be able to take on the challenge of constructing realistic models for unicellular micro-organisms. Accordingly, the meeting concluded with the Osaka Declaration that:
"A key target for future collaborations in microbial systems biology will be the construction of a generic model of microbial central metabolism and its control: a virtual microbe."
The Virtual Microbe project
Construction of the virtual microbe will be of outstanding scientific value, as the model will describe 95% of the crucially important part of ‘Life’ that is defined in terms of metabolic fluxes. The product of the project will greatly exceed the importance of the microbial genome sequencing projects, as it will be much closer to understanding biological function and will have widespread practical application. The project will also act as a prototype for similar challenges in higher organisms.
Construction of a virtual microbe will be an ambitious but realistic project that will utilise complementary expertise in Japan and the UK and build a novel resource that will provide great benefits to the health and well being of people of both nations.
