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Pharmacopsychiatry 2011; 44: S9-S14
DOI: 10.1055/s-0031-1271703
Original Paper

© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

The Aims of Systems Biology: between Molecules and Organisms

D. Noble1
  • 1Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, Oxford, UK
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Publication History

Publication Date:
04 May 2011 (online)

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Abstract

The systems approach to biology has a long history. Its recent rapid resurgence at the turn of the century reflects the problems encountered in interpreting the sequencing of the genome and the failure of that immense achievement to provide rapid and direct solutions to major multi-factorial diseases. This paper argues that systems biology is necessarily multilevel and that there is no privileged level of causality in biological systems. It is an approach rather than a separate discipline. Functionality arises from biological networks that interact with the genome, the environment and the phenotype. This view of biology is very different from the gene-centred views of neo-Darwinism and molecular biology. In neuroscience, the systems approach leads naturally to 2 important conclusions: first, that the idea of ‘programs’ in the brain is confusing, and second, that the self is better interpreted as a process than as an object.

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Correspondence

Prof. Dr. D. Noble

Department of Physiology,

Anatomy and Genetics

Parks Road

Oxford, OX1 3PT

UK

Email: Denis.noble@dpag.ox.ac.uk