Systems biology for biologists

  For any phenotype--molecular, macroscopic, or ecological--a set of interrelated factors exist that contribute to this phenotype. Since these factors interact, they need to be studied collectively, not merely individually. Complex systems, e,g., the immune system of an organism, are notably complic...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS pathogens 2015-05, Vol.11 (5), p.e1004786-e1004786
Main Author: Hillmer, Rachel A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Animals
Biological Evolution
Biologists
Biology
Biology - methods
Complex systems
Ecosystem biology
Ecosystems
Genotype & phenotype
Humans
Mathematical models
Mathematics
Models, Biological
Molecular Biology - methods
Network hubs
Pearls
Research Personnel
Studies
Systems Biology
Traffic flow
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:  For any phenotype--molecular, macroscopic, or ecological--a set of interrelated factors exist that contribute to this phenotype. Since these factors interact, they need to be studied collectively, not merely individually. Complex systems, e,g., the immune system of an organism, are notably complicated in two ways: (1) they are tuned to respond differently to different system inputs, and (2) the system that mediates outputs as a function of inputs is full of network redundancy, which ensures operation under nonideal circumstances. [...]learning the rules for how a complex system operates requires coincident, varied, and likely combinatorial external and internal perturbations to a system. [...]I thank all the adventurous systems biologists, past and present, who have persevered in communicating across the vast cultural divide between mathematics and biology.
ISSN:1553-7374
1553-7366
1553-7374
DOI:10.1371/journal.ppat.1004786