In This Issue

In thinking about complexity, it's frequently invoked that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This notion serves as one of the motivating principles of systems biology, which seeks to understand the emergent properties of complex biological systems. Among many biologists, systems biology is also synonymous with the use of particular approaches, including high-throughput techniques, large-scale integration of datasets, and computational modeling to probe system behaviors. There is indeed little doubt that the recent growth of the field has been fueled by the massive expansion in the amount of data being generated in the biological sciences—first from genome sequencing and more recently from such sources as transcriptomics, proteomics, and high-throughput imaging. Given this rising tide of data, there is an urgent need for new ways of analyzing large datasets and for conceptualizing biological complexity. It is in this context that we present our 2011 Special Review Issue on systems biology.The overarching goal of this collection is to highlight biological insights revealed by the quantitative and computational approaches associated with systems biology. To accomplish this, the issue includes topics that span vastly different size and time scales, from protein-protein interactions to disease models, from transcriptional dynamics to evolutionary processes. For the issue's diversity, depth, and thought-provoking insights, we would like to thank the many distinguished authors and reviewers who generously contributed their time and effort. In reading the issue, we hope that you will find that the collection, like biological systems, is more than the sum of its individual parts, providing a new perspective on this rapidly changing field