Pathway connections: connectivity of pathway elements and their directions in biological molecular pathway diagrams

Biology is a complex process of many different basic elements. This research studies biological processes and observing how those elements form complex networks. Drawings help to explain what connections the basic elements bring together and give rise to increasingly complex networks. These networks then in turn provide the basis of a system working together and in biology this system is called an organism. This thesis focuses on two basic elements. One is elements that draw the biological entities such as proteins, metabolites, and genetic elements represented. The other is their connections. The results show how they help to understand how the biological systems work, using the knowledge of how the elements are connected and thus how they influence one another. Exploration of how this approach can help to study why two drugs together sometimes work better than either one drug alone or identify alternate protein targets.