Systems Biology

-Aniket Sadashiva

In the words of Aristotle, "The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts." Systems Biology is based on similar lines, it is like a puzzle where you need to fill all the pieces in and look at the bigger picture unlike Reductionist Biology. It integrates various scientific disciplines like Bioinformatics, Physics, Calculus, Linear Algebra, Game Theory, Computer Science, etc and thus takes on a holistic view on the various systems.

There is no concrete definition, and one might find a completely new definition every-time. However the essence remains the same ,the Human Genome Project which aims at determining the DNA sequence of the entire human genome is a much celebrated example involving systems biology. The theoretical description of working of cells, tissues and organisms as systems is only possible through systems biology. Moreover modelling and simulations of the fundamental biological topics like Diversity and Evolution is also an integral part of this field.

Nobel laureates Alan Hodjkin, Albert Claude and George Emil Palade (regarded as the most influential cell biologist ever) are prominent people who are associated to this field. Systems Biology is also deployed in the study of tumours, immune systems and also viruses (Corona too...). In the words of Boogard, Systems Biology can be indeed considered as "culmination of biology".

References:

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_biology

2.https://irp.nih.gov/catalyst/v19i6/systems-biology-as-defined-by-nih

3.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3371392/