Networks Are Everywhere!

A network (or graph) consists of a set of nodes and a set of edges connecting the nodes. Networks model many real-world phenomena in various research domains. Examples include technological networks such as the Internet, information networks such as the World Wide Web, social networks such as Facebook, ecological networks such as food webs, or biological networks such as protein-protein interaction networks. The study of these complex networks involves researchers from many different disciplines, e.g., computer science, engineering, biology, mathematics, physics, and sociology, which has led to formation of numerous interdisciplinary fields. Owing to the exponential growth of real-world network data, the complexity of the networks has become the central issue in their modeling and understanding. Hence, there is a need for sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques for analyzing the networks to gain insights into their function.

CoNe Lab is developing graph theoretic and computational approaches for network mining, i.e., analyzing, modeling, clustering, and comparing (i.e., aligning) large real-world networks to enable efficient extraction of functional information from network structure (or topology). One of our primary focuses is on computational and systems biology, i.e., applying our methods to biological networks, e.g., networks of interactions between proteins in the cell, to address many important problems in biomedicine, such as predicting protein function or identifying novel disease genes and drug targets. Efficient extraction of meaningful functional information from biological networks could yield valuable insights into complex biological mechanisms in the cell and deepen our understanding of biological function, disease, and evolution. In addition, we are interested in applying the methods to other types of real-world networks, such as social networks – networks of friendships and acquaintances or on-line social communities, or technological networks, such as the Internet.

For more details, see the description of our projects and the list of our publications.