About CCSB

The Chicago Center for Systems Biology (CCSB) is one of ten National Centers for Systems Biology funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). The Center is located at the University of Chicago and represents a multi-disciplinary collaboration with Northwestern University investigators at the Evanston and Chicago campuses, fostered by the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC), with support from The Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust.

We are investigating one of the most exciting and challenging questions in the field of Systems Biology: "How do multiple genes or proteins, dozens or even hundreds at once, work together as networks to regulate the basic processes of life?". To answer this question, the Center's investigators are using model organisms such as worms and fruit flies to identify ancient stress-response circuits and learn how these have evolved differently in each system. Other topics involving fruit flies examine the genetic networks that maintain both stability and flexibility for repeating anatomical patterns during development, and how gene transcription guides the decisions each cell must make as it chooses to become one of two cell types within a fly's eye. In mammals, such as mice, we study the complex sets of chemical and genetic signals that guide stem cells in the bone marrow as they mature to become many different kinds of blood cells.