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MISSION STATEMENT
 Organismal
Systems Biology aims to explain how high level properties
of complex organisms arise from the interactions among their
constituent parts. The core components of the systems-biological
reasoning fostered by the Center are represented by the circles
in the figure. Discoveries of ORDER may be temporal or spatial,
and, if spatial, can pertain to the assembly of entities [structure]
or the repetition of entities [pattern]. Models of DYNAMIC
PROCESSES arise at time scales from the nanosecond to days
and months [physiology] through the life span [development]
and up to millions of years [evolution]. Control of order
and dynamics is not only by energy but also by INFORMATION,
manifest at various levels from the cell through the network
within the organism and, at even higher levels, by the influence
of other conspecifics [social] or of general environmental
conditions.
The support
that these central concepts offer for explaining the emergence
and behavior of higher-level properties guides the research
carried out at the Center. This integrative approach is particularly
suited for analyzing the transitions among levels of organization
that are characteristic for complex organisms – not
only in the molecular-to-cellular level transitions where
we are most used to seeing them nowadays, but also at the
level of the embryo, tissue, physiological system, life cycle,
or population.
Organismal
systems biology can involve experiments, statistics, or mathematical
models and computing. It is comfortable with explanations
at multiple physical and temporal scales at the same time
(e.g. fractal structures, collective behaviors, bifurcations).
It is particularly interested in the ways that systems can
show stable properties (homeostasis) in the face of fluctuations
of their own internal details or of the environments in which
they develop and survive. Robustness, in this sense, is a
system property, expressed sometimes in stable structures
(such as epithelium) and sometimes in stable cycles (the cell
cycle, the cardiac cycle, biorhythms). Also of central interest
is the general notion of "function," the way a biological
system acquires and converts free energy from the environment
into changes ranging from new structure to locomotion, reproduction,
predation, or into system maintenance or repair. A particularly
interesting function is the acquisition of information and
its conversion to structure, as by sensory and neuronal networks,
through processes that range from mere perception to symbol-grounding,
and their use for guiding behavior.
Center for Organismal
Systems Biology | Faculty
of Life Sciences | University
of Vienna
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