More than a dozen interdisciplinary projects involving over 20 IUNI labs, currently focus on how network connections from genes to global culture influence health, illness/disease, and health service use from individual to population outcomes (see Figure).
These collaborative projects tackle such topics as: uncovering genomic, proteomic and metabolomics pathways and networks involved in Alzheimer’s disease (Saykin, Shen, Sporns); understanding the epidemiology, outcomes and associated stigma of mental illness, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, epilepsy (Perry, Pescosolido, Rocha, Menczer, Bollen, Flammini); drug-interaction discovery from experimental evidence and social media analysis (Rocha, Li); studying mental disorders in the context of multi-level networks ranging from genes to the brain and social systems (Pescosolido, Sporns, Saykin, Ahn); network extraction and analysis of control pathways in systems biology models of biochemical regulation and disease (Rocha, Sporns); the study of multi-level networks involved in mortality and morbidity of the Icelandic population (Pescosolido, Sporns, Shekhar, Rocha, Pullen, Perry); social network analysis to examine doctor shopping as a key indicator of prescription drug abuse (Perry, Ahn); social network cohort studies to understand psychosocial and behavioral factors in precision health and related community outcomes (Pescosolido, Rocha, Sporns, Perry).
These projects offer a collaborative environment where trainees in both computational and social science are greatly needed and have a chance to excel at multiple levels of health-related research, from the molecular to the clinical and social.