{"561931":{"#nid":"561931","#data":{"type":"news","title":"The Word on Systems Biology","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEberhard Voit can be forgiven if he sometimes felt like a recluse among scientists early in his career. As a system biologist, he didn\u2019t have a lot of company.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut he says that all changed around 2000, near the conclusion of the Human Genome Project, which utilized an integrated, cross-disciplinary approach to transform biology, leading to the launch of \u2018systems biology.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThen, all of a sudden, we came out of the shadows,\u201d says Voit, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and a researcher in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cTalk about a tipping point,\u201d says Voit, also a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Systems Biology. \u201cThat was the Human Genome Project. Until then, nobody even wanted to talk with people like me. \u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProbably, it\u2019s because they wouldn\u2019t have known what to talk about.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe field was very, very underdeveloped,\u201d says Voit, who has spent a good part of his career trying to explain what systems biology is, becoming an internationally recognized leader in the field and an authoritative spokesperson as the author of five books on the subject.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHis textbook, \u003Cem\u003EA First Course in Systems Biology\u003C\/em\u003E, is required reading for BME students at the Georgia Institute of Technology. While that book has been hailed as one of the best in the field, a powerful introduction to systems biology, it isn\u2019t exactly light reading, and the target audience is limited.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere aren\u2019t a lot of people looking for systems biology books in the book store, and what they do find is incomprehensible,\u201d said Voit, who decided to write something that would appeal to a larger audience, partly because, \u201cit started to bother me that not even my own family and friends would read my books.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESystems biology is, basically, a holistic, but rigorously anchored approach to biological research; the study of whole systems (molecules, cells, organisms or entire species), utilizing technologies like genomics, molecular analysis and proteomics and, importantly, mathematical and computational models.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMost books in the field use heavy, heavy math. I wanted to write a systems biology book without equations,\u201d says Voit.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe result is the recently published \u003Cem\u003EThe Inner Workings of Life: Vignettes in Systems Biology. \u003C\/em\u003EThe reader doesn\u2019t have to dive very deep before realizing that this is not your average science book.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe front of the book has an \u2018Appetizer,\u2019 instead of a \u2018Preface or \u2018Foreword.\u2019 The chapters have provocative titles like, \u201cI\u2019d rather be fishin\u2019\u201d and \u201cClose only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,\u201d and \u201cLove thyself and fight all others.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVoit is obviously having fun and manages to commiserate with the reader while sharing his knowledge with this new book. For instance, he lightheardedly mocks the overuse of some jargon within his field (there\u2019s a whole chapter, most of it tongue-in-cheek while also managing to be explanatory, on the nearly ubiquitous suffix \u201c-omics\u201d), but then he includes a helpful, informative section called \u201cGentle Jargon\u201d near the back of the book.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBasically, \u003Cem\u003EThe Inner Works of Life\u003C\/em\u003E is Voit\u2019s way of explaining himself and his work and the field he works within, to people who pay the freight.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe taxpayer is paying for this research we\u2019re doing, and if he or she is interested in what we\u2019re doing, he or she should have the opportunity to learn more about it, without needing an advanced degree,\u201d Voit says. \u201cThis is rather complicated stuff, especially the technical aspects, but one should be able to write about what is happening out there in systems biology in an easy-to-understand way. You can write what the challenges are, what the promise is, why we are doing what we do. All of that was a good reason to write this book.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s the first of its kind \u2013 a systems biology book that is accessible to the general reading public. Voit was probably the perfect fit for this kind of groundbreaking. He was the first person in the 630-year history of the University of Cologne (in his native Germany) to major in biology with a minor in mathematics.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThey laughed at me then because, at the time, the thinking was that biology is too complicated to use math,\u201d he says. \u201cNow we know that biology is too complicated \u003Cem\u003Enot \u003C\/em\u003Eto use math.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut there are no equations in Voit\u2019s new book. He relies on facts, narrative, wit, and the occasional metaphor to help define a field of research that is still defining itself, populated by researchers who are finally out of the shadows. Voit thinks of these system biologists, who are working in a realm that is central to all areas of biology and medicine, as master Sudoku players.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cTrying to figure out how the multitudinous parts in cells work together to create something as incredible as a brain is very attractive to us,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are fully aware that we will not solve the whole puzzle in our lifetimes, but nature is modular, and every systems biologist hopes to solve a large sub-puzzle, or at least a few smaller puzzles. The intellectual challenge is the enormous complexity of every cell and organism, which requires us to invent new tools and methods, and that\u2019s what systems biology is all about.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"New book by Eberhard Voit breaks breaks down complex science for the general reader"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENew book by Eberhard Voit breaks breaks down complex science for the general reader\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New book by Eberhard Voit breaks breaks down complex science for the general reader"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2016-08-11 11:05:04","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:22:19","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-08-11T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-08-11T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"561891":{"id":"561891","type":"image","title":"Voit\u0027s new book","body":null,"created":"1470927212","gmt_created":"2016-08-11 14:53:32","changed":"1475895364","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:56:04","alt":"Voit\u0027s new book","file":{"fid":"218273","name":"eberhard_with_book_0.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/eberhard_with_book_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/eberhard_with_book_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":4086855,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/eberhard_with_book_0.jpg?itok=Y7D9KB1P"}}},"media_ids":["561891"],"groups":[{"id":"1254","name":"Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"126571","name":"go-PetitInstitute"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}