Biological Complexity Under Attack

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News
Feature Articles: Oct 1, 2011 (Vol. 31, No. 17)
Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D. A Personal View of Systems Biology and the Coming of "Big" Science

This is a truly remarkable time in the biological sciences. Biology now has the opportunity to effectively attack some of the most fundamental problems of society, including healthcare, agriculture, bio-energy, a sustainable environment, and nutrition.

These opportunities are a result of system strategies for probing biological complexity, emerging technologies that are allowing us to explore new dimensions of data space, and the provision of novel analytical tools for analyzing, integrating, and modeling large datasets.

Over the past 40 years, I have done a lot of thinking about biological complexity and these thoughts have directly and/or indirectly led to me to participate in a series of paradigm changes that have transformed how we think about and decipher the complexities of biology and medicine.

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