The Galas group investigates the complexity of function and inheritance in living systems to understand the fundamental relationships that underlie human health and disease. Instead of looking at individual components of biological processes, they focus attention on the integration of biological systems. They then derive network representations and mathematical analyses of the physiology and pathophysiology of biological systems. Perturbations in these systems can trigger cascades of failures, which lead to the malfunctioning of cellular networks and the development of specific diseases. Understanding these failures provides a way to detect, monitor and treat human diseases by countering network perturbations.

Specific research areas include: miRNA function and measurement, lung diseases like COPD and IPF, and new approaches to the mathematical analysis of networks.