Molecular biology is being transformed by new technologies, particularly in genome sequencing and single-cell assays, and future biologists should be as familiar with the computer as with the pipette.

Systems biology is now a generic term to describe quantitative approaches in cell and molecular biology. Given that we know all the genes in many organisms, the challenge is to understand how these genes interact and — functioning together as a system — produce the remarkable behaviours we associate with life.

Location: Tuesdays 10am-12pm in Murchison House Room 1.19.

For all classes after the first lecture, we will work both on new lecture material and on programming and simulations. Please bring both paper and your laptop.

Gunawardena J. Models in biology: "accurate descriptions of pathetic thinking". BMC Biology 2014; 12: 29.

Alon U. Biological networks: the tinkerer as an engineer. Science 2003; 301: 1866.

Lazebnik Y. Can a biologist fix a radio? Cancer Cell 2002; 2: 179.

Hartwell LH, Hopfield JJ, Leibler S, Murray AW. From molecular to modular cell biology. Nature 1999; 402: C47.

Mathematical Modeling in Systems Biology by Brian Ingalls (MIT Press, 2013 — free pdf)

An Introduction to Systems Biology by Uri Alon (Chapman & Hall, 2007)

Physical Biology of the Cell by Rob Phillips et al. (Garland, 2009)

Systems Biology by Edda Klipp et al. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016)

Structure and Mechanism in Protein Science by Alan Fersht (WH Freeman, 1999)

Molecular Driving Forces by Ken Dill and Sarina Bromberg (Garland, 2010)