Complexity in Biological Information Processing (Novartis Foundation Symposia)

Many human diseases arise from the malfunction of signalling components, in particular alterations of multiple components of an integrated signalling network. Experimental and computational tools to describe and quantify these changes are increasingly available, providing a wealth of data that can stimulate systematic analysis of the entire signalling network and enable prediction of disease states not easily recognizable from complex data sets.

This groundbreaking book explores the structural and temporal complexity in biological signalling exemplified in neuronal, immunological, humoral and genetic signal transduction networks. With discussions between experimentalists and theoretically oriented scientists, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach that may help switch the analysis of biological signalling from descriptive to predictive science and capture the behaviour of entire systems.

• Explores the structural and temporal complexity in biological signalling.
• Represents an unusual collocation of three different areas: immunology, cell signalling and neural networks.
• Contains interdisciplinary discussions between experimentalists and theoretically oriented scientists, in particular those working on computer simulations.

The Novartis Foundation is an international scientific and educational charity which promotes the study and general knowledge of science and in particular encourages international co-operation in scientific research.