Lessons from EGFR research show how to kick-start a systems approach for other areas of biology
If you want to start an interesting debate at almost any scientific meeting, just bring up systems biology. Latched onto by the scientific and even the lay press as the "next big thing," it is clear that many scientists have misgivings about the subject. The rapidly changing landscape of biology is an exciting notion but one that can be worrisome. Regarded by some as little more than a buzzword and others as the next step in bringing biology from a descriptive to a predictive science, systems biology is host to disagreements fueled in part by a lack of a uniform definition.
At the most basic level, systems biology seeks to understand how the molecular processes of cells are linked to higher biological functions. The relationships between low- and high-level functions must be specified to ...
