Modeling and Simulation of Cell Signaling Networks for Subsequent Analytics Processes Using Big Data and Machine Learning

This work explores how much the traditional approach to modeling and simulation of biological systems, specifically cell signaling networks, can be increased and improved by integrating big data, data mining, and machine learning techniques. Specifically, we first model, simulate, validate, and calibrate the behavior of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR cancer-related signaling pathway. Subsequently, once the behavior of the simulated signaling network matches the expected behavior, the capacity of the computational simulation is increased to grow data (data farming). First, we use big data techniques to extract, collect, filter, and store large volumes of data describing all the interactions among the simulated cell signaling system components over time. Afterward, we apply data mining and machine learning techniques—specifically, exploratory data analysis, feature selection techniques, and supervised neural network models—to the resulting biological dataset to obtain new inferences and knowledge about this biological system. The results showed how the traditional approach to the simulation of biological systems could be enhanced and improved by incorporating big data, data mining, and machine learning techniques, which significantly contributed to increasing the predictive power of the simulation.