Identification and Analysis of Illegal States in the Apoptotic Discrete Transition System Model using ATPG and SAT-based Techniques

Programmed Cell Death, or Apoptosis, plays a critical role in human embryonic development and in adult tissue homeostasis. Recent research efforts in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology focus on gaining deep insight into the Apoptosis process. This allows researchers to clearly study the relation between the dysregulation of apoptosis and the development of cancer. Research in this highly interdisciplinary field of bioinformatics has become much more quantitative, using tools from computational sciences to understand the behavior of Biological systems. Previously, an abstracted model has been developed to study the Apoptosis process as a Finite State Discrete Transition Model. This model facilitates the reutilization of the digital design verification and testing techniques developed in the Electronic Design Automation domain. These verification and testing techniques for hardware have become robust over the past few decades. Usually simulation is the cornerstone of the Design Verification industry and bulk of states are covered by simulation. Formal verification techniques are then used to analyze the remaining corner case states. Techniques like Genetic Algorithm guided Logic Simulation (GALS) and SAT-based Induction have already been applied to the Apoptosis Discrete Transition Model. However, the Apoptosis model presents some unique problems. The simulation techniques have shown to be unable to