Modelling Complex Biological Systems in the Context of Genomics

The post-genomic era of biology is characterised by a deluge of molecular data about the cell. This `new' biology has its own vocabulary of genome, transcriptome, proteome and even metabolome, interactome and lipidome. The challenge is to make sense out of this information by coming up with a new integrated picture of the cell which takes into account that it is simultaneously an autocatalytic set, a tensegrity structure, a network or a set of networks with particular connectivities and feedback characteristics, a set of codes and decoding devices, a self-organising system ... and so on. Taking on this challenge therefore also requires the introduction of concepts unfamiliar to biologists and the development of new ones, the formulation of new hypotheses and their testing via simulations or wet experiments.