Nothing in biology makes sense
except when properly quantified in the light of evolution.
Evolutionary systems biology aims to bring together the rich mechanistic details of current systems biology and the long-standing quantitative experience in evolutionary genetics in order to increase the quantitative rigor of biological analyses.
Since current systems biology means many things to many people, it is perhaps inevitable that evolutionary systems biology might be even broader. A potentially useful framework that goes beyond comparative analyses of systems biology data was described recently and centers around a research program to quantify the adaptive landscape (Loewe, 2009).
If you are interested in related work, you may want to attend the upcoming
Workshop on Evolutionary Systems Biology
which will be held in association with the International Conference on Systems Biology (ICSB) at the 15th Oct 2010 in Edinburgh, UK.
References
Loewe L (2009) A framework for evolutionary systems biology. BMC Systems Biology 3:27. Journal Link
Ibarra, R. U., Edwards, J. S., & Palsson, B. O. (2002) Escherichia coli K-12 undergoes adaptive evolution to achieve in silico predicted optimal growth. Nature 420, 186-9. PubMed
Wagner A (2008) "Neutralism and selectionism: a network-based reconciliation.", Nat Rev Genet 9:965-74. PubMed
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