Wprowadzenie do biologii systemów. Część I

Abstract

A gigantic amounts of data and information on molecules that constitute the very complex cell machinery have
been collected, classified and stored in data banks. Although we posses enormous amount of knowledge about the
properties and functions of thousands of molecular entities, we are still far from understanding how they do work in
a living cell. It is clear now that these molecules (genes, proteins) are not autonomous, that there is no direct linear
relation between genotype and phenotype, and that the majority of functions are carried and executed by concerted
molecular activity, and that the majority of diseases are multifactorial. A basic property of the matter in a living cell
(both normal and pathologic) is an interaction between variety of macromolecules, mainly proteins, genes (DNA)
etc. In a process of self-organization they are able to form an active molecular biologic system — a complex, labile
and dynamic network which integrity is secured by non-covalent bounds. In this essay some basic properties of
network structure and the universal rules that govern them are described. Network or system biology is promising
new research approach in biology and medicine.