Abstract
Biologists who count
Highlights
The importance of mathematics in biology is a matter of perennial debate
Leaving aside the issue of exactly how you define systems biology, one of the objectives of those who would say they are practitioners is to understand the emergent properties of complex systems
He gives as a classic example of a switch in biology the gene-regulatory switch [4] that operates the decision between lysis and lysogeny in bacteriophage lambda
Summary
The importance of mathematics in biology is a matter of perennial debate. The squabbles of early 20th century geneticists on the value of mathematics to the study of evolution have recently been revisited in Journal of Biology [1], and the 21st century has seen an explosion of information from various -omics and imaging techniques that has provided fresh impetus to the arguments urging the need for mathematical competence in the life sciences [2]. Leaving aside the issue of exactly how you define systems biology, one of the objectives of those who would say they are practitioners is to understand the emergent properties of complex systems. Examples of such properties in biological systems are the biochemical switches and oscillators that underlie the cell cycle, and the robustness of biological mechanisms for example, the morphogenetic gradients that direct early embryonic development - in conditions that are subject to stochastic fluctuation.
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