Abstract
Severe injury and other disease conditions (cancer, diabetes) lead to a hypermetabolic state featuring increased turnover of proteins, fatty acids and crbohydrates. Prolonged hypermetabolism is accompanied by progressive organ failure and serious complications. Understanding the biochemical underpinnings of the hypermetabolic response will lead to a better understanding of the changes at the systemic level and ultimately provide clues for limiting its harmful consequences. We examine integrated bioinformatics approaches combining novel modeling and computational techniques, animal injury models, and gene expression measurements for analyzing hypermetabolic states. We demonstrate how integrative systems biology developments upgrade the information content of diverse biological data and ultimately advance our fundamental biological understanding