Reconstructing gene regulatory networks, dreading future pain and the About My Lab collection: the PLOS Comp Biol November issue

Here is our selection PLOS Computational Biology highlights for November.

The study of gene regulatory networks is essential to understanding how diseases function at a system level. Hiroaki Kitano and colleagues developed an algorithm called TopkNet that can integrate multiple algorithms in order to infer gene regulatory networks. The authors aim to provide a method to reconstruct high quality versions of these networks and thereby gain greater knowledge for successful reverse engineering on biomedical research.

A paper that received some notable press attention this month is “Dread and the Disvalue of Future Pain”. The paper, by Giles Story et al., shows that the expectation of future pain creates dread, which increases the more the pain is delayed. However, as pain moves further into the future, the effect of delay decreases.

November also saw the launch of our new collection, About My Lab. The collection, edited by Theodore Alexandrov and Philip E. Bourne, aims to share insights into the running of a lab. Each article is written from the perspective of a Principal Investigator in their own personal style. In publishing this collection we hope to further the dialogue between old, young and future PIs.

By Chris Hall, Senior Publications Assistant, PLOS Computational Biology