  Cancer is a disease involving many genes, consequently it has been difficult
to design anticancer drugs that are efficacious over a broad range of cancers.
The robustness of cellular responses to gene knockout and the need to reduce
undesirable side effects also contribute to the problem of effective
anti-cancer drug design. To promote the successful selection of drug targets,
each potential target should be subjected to a systems biology scrutiny to
locate effective and specific targets while minimizing undesirable side
effects. The gene p53 is considered a good candidate for such a target because
it has been implicated in 50% of all cancers and is considered to encode a hub
protein that is highly connected to other proteins. Using P53 as a test case,
this paper explores the capacity of the systems biology tool, CellDesigner, to
aid in the selection of anticancer drug targets and to serve as a teaching
resource for human resource development.
