title: Deciphering the molecular basis of human cardiovascular disease through network biology.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This review introduces the fundamental concepts of network medicine and explores the feasibility and potential impact of network-based methods on predicting and ameliorating individual manifestations of human cardiovascular disease.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Complex cardiovascular diseases rarely result from an abnormality in a single molecular effector, but, rather, nearly always are the net result of multiple pathobiological pathways that interact through an interconnected network. In the postgenomic era, a framework has emerged of the potential complexity of the interacting pathways that govern molecular actions in the human cell. As a result, network approaches have been developed to understand more comprehensively those interconnections that influence human disease. 'Network medicine' has already led to tangible discoveries of novel disease genes and pathways as well as improved mechanisms for rational drug development.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  As methodologies evolve, network medicine may better capture the complexity of human pathogenesis and, thus, re-define personalized disease classification and therapies.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen Y
authors.initials: SY
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Loscalzo
mesh_terms: D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000235:genetics*; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D015195:Drug Design; D006801:Humans; D008967:Molecular Biology; D010597:Pharmacogenetics; D049490:Systems Biology