The primary mission of the NIGMS-supported National Centers for Systems Biology is to promote institutional development of multidisciplinary research, training, and outreach programs that focus on systems-level studies of biomedical phenomena within the NIGMS mission. The centers are expected to establish themselves as recognized leaders of research and education in systems biology.
Because systems biology is still an emerging field, it has numerous definitions. NIGMS currently defines systems biology as:
A discipline at the intersection of biology, mathematics, engineering, and the physical sciences that integrates experimental and computational approaches to study and understand biological processes in cells, tissues, and organisms. Studies at the systems level are distinguished not only by their quantitative nature in data collection and mathematical modeling, but also by their focus on interactions among individual elements such as genes, proteins, and metabolites. These studies often integrate data from multiple levels of the biological information hierarchy in an environmental and evolutionary context and pay particular attention to dynamic processes that vary in time and space. Successive iterations of experiment and theory development are characteristic of systems biology. When applied to human health, systems biology models are intended to predict physiological behavior in response to natural and artificial perturbations and thereby contribute to the understanding and treatment of human diseases.
