Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
These suggest investigations that could be done by systems biologists concerning
the origins and plausible evolutionary order of the different complex elements of
mitosis. Hypotheses about the origins of life have always had to pass muster on
biochemical grounds and plausibility. All these have implications for the broader
architecture of living systems within which NSB works. Not everything in either
evolutionary biology or developmental biology is relevant to NSB, but some
of it is already part of NSB, and other parts will become increasingly relevant
over time as we learn to better relate processes, acting on different time and size
scales.
We should not fear that evolutionary and developmental biology will sim-
ply swallow systems biology, because systems biology is characterized by its
approach as much as by its subject matter. Nor must the aim of the NSB be
to serve developmental and evolutionary biology, any more than it might be
to serve, e.g., oncology or epidemiology. Evolutionary biology, developmental
biology, genetics, cell physiology, and biochemistry are using converging
methodologies on the common stage of the cell, and recognizing that they must
share common assumptions and knowledge to do their respective jobs ade-
quately.
4
Progress in NSB surely will serve all these and just as surely will be
served by them. Moreover, the modeling aims and techniques will surely be in
at least some part different, and NSB will have a lot to contribute to these areas
as well as to derive from them. In large fractions of their domains, evolution-
ary, developmental, and genetic investigators are being forced to take a systems
biology perspective, and so systems biology should grow as their methodologies
spread among related disciplines. But it cannot avoid them.
3. THE PROBLEM OF DATA RELIABILITY IN THE ANALYSIS
OF LARGE SYSTEMS
To illustrate how and why evolutionary and developmental concerns are central
to core issues in systems biology, I want to start with a seemingly unrelated
puzzle: How do we get a reliable account of the cell when we do not have totally
reliable data about it?
5
This applies both to the analysis of gene-control networks
and to biochemical pathways. Although the data I draw upon comes from the
former context, it obviously must influence the latter. There are uncertainties
4
Community ecology and traditional systems ecology also share many of the same methodological approaches,
tools, and problems, but on more macroscopic objects. Though I do not discuss them here, they too should be
a part of the broadly conceived systems biology.
5
I was first made aware of the magnitude of the problem of data unreliability by Beckett Sterner, who also
provided me with the key reference (Deane et al., 2002). Sterner's input was crucial and my debt is substantial,
because this is the key organizing insight of the paper.
