Scaling in Biological and Social Networks - Abstract - Beslon
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"systems biology, where is the network?"
Systems biology is often presented as the science of cell networks. Indeed, a plethora of papers deal with either observation, inference or analysis of networks at different levels of the cellular organization (genetic regulation networks, metabolic networks, signaling networks...). I will question here the reality of these networks: Do they represent an objective knowledge about cells or are they mainly artificial constructions based on limited and imprecise observation tools?
I will argue that most network-based description neglect the physical grounding of either cellular systems and observation tools (e.g. microarrays). In particular, networks are inferred under the assumption of homogeneity. Yet, quite all biological systems are heterogeneous. Either a single cell or a cell population are heterogeneous systems while most networks are inferred on the basis of data gathered at the population level !
The aim of my talk will be to review some limitations of network representation in order to start a discussion about the way one can integrate heterogeneity in cellular models.