"In one way, you
could say all the genetic and molecular biological work of the last 60 years
could be considered a long interlude...We have come full circle?back to the
problems left behind unsolved. How does a wounded organism regenerate exactly
the same structure it had before? How does the egg form the organism? In the
next 25 years, we are going to have to teach biologists another language...I
don't know what it's called yet; nobody knows..."
Sydney Brenner
Delivered over 30 years
ago, Brenner's cautionary words resound even more forcefully today. Although
we may now have a term, 'systems biology,' for his 'language' (the focus of
this issue), the central problem remains: how to transform molecular knowledge
into an understanding of complex phenomena in cells, tissues, organs and
organisms? In the intervening decades, we have become spectacularly successful
at creating inventories of genes, proteins and metabolites, but remained
spectacularly average at pinpointing key points for medical intervention in
disease pathways or determining which recombinant gene(s) to add to generate a
complex trait. There is no clear connection between molecular description and
such 'systems' phenomena.