Systems Biology

An Introduction

Systems biology is the study the study of interactions within biological systems. An example of a biological system is a plant cell, where the various organelles work together to maintain a healthy, functional cell. Instead of analyzing individual components of the organism, such as chloroplasts or the cell nucleus, system biologists focus on all the components and the interactions among them, all as part of one system.

Just like a computer, biological systems comprise of many individual components that serve specific functions. The Central Processor (CPU) for example performs extremely fast calculations. But with it alone, a computer cannot carry out the tasks that are required.

A computer system comprises of parts which interact. The interaction of these parts produces new properties and functions. Because these properties are the result of interactions between the parts, they can not be attributed to any single parts of the system. This makes systems irreducible. A system is unlikely to be fully understood by taking it apart and studying each part on its own. (We cannot understand an author's message by studying individual words; we cannot appreciate a forest by looking at individual trees.) To understand systems, and to be able to fully understand a system's emergent properties, systems need be studied as a whole.

Scientists today seek to understand the interactions occurring within biological systems. Unlike the computer, biological systems where not created by man. Therefore little knowledge is available about the functions and the behavior of the components within a cell. Just like a hardware developer has to understand the details within a computer system, scientists in the field of systems biology have to do the same. With this knowledge they are able to make changes the organism to ‘improve’ it.

The goals of systems biology does not stop with a complete understanding of biological system. Systems biology gives rise to prescriptive medicine – medicine that is specific for particular illnesses and could possibly hold the cure for incurable ailments like cancer.

I foresee many problems with the use of special medicines. Just because we are not God and our understanding of whole systems is limited, the wrong use of science could potentially leave us with a world full of zombies, as depicted in the movie ‘I am Legend’.

A Systems Biology Project

Halophilic Archaea Research – Institute for Systems Biology (ISB)

Scientists Woese and Fox demonstrated presence of a third domain of life besides eukaryotes and prokaryotes called the Archaea. The halophilic archaea are able to survive in hypersaline (extra salty) environments (e.g Dead Sea) as they are physiologically robust and are able to tune themselves appropriately to the environment through signal transduction and gene regulatory networks.

Researchers at the ISB have focused their study on two organisms - Halobacterium NRC-1 and Haloarcula marismortui. The study of these organisms offer an opportunity to understand the system level mechanisms of environmental response systems in cells. To carry out the study scientists have determined the complete genome sequences for both of the above organisms and developed an array of genome scale strategies tailored to analyzing their biology. Using these powerful tools they are applying systems approaches to obtain from halophiles the complete sets of metabolic and gene regulatory networks that together specify their behavior in the face of changing environmental conditions.

This study undertaken by the ISB could uncover new insights on the system cells adopt to be able to adapt themselves to different environments.

Sources

http://www.systemsbiology.org/Intro_to_ISB_and_Systems_Biology/Systems_Biology_--_the_21st_Century_Science

http://baliga.systemsbiology.net//