Principles for Integrative Structural Biology Studies

The Evolving Contribution of Mass Spectrometry to Integrative Structural Biology.

Protein complexes are key catalysts and regulators for the majority of cellular processes. Unveiling their assembly and structure is essential to understanding their function and mechanism of action. Although conventional structural techniques such as X-ray crystallography and NMR have solved the structure of important protein complexes, they cannot consistently deal with dynamic and heterogene...

Integrative biology and systems biology

Demarcations of scientific fields have always followed either a conceptual breakthrough or have been a result of profoundly enabling technologies. Quantum theory and quantum mechanics revolutionized physics and engineering, but highenergy physics is a discipline fundamentally enabled by the linear accelerator. Similarly, the discovery of the structure of DNA gave birth to molecular biology; str...

Systems Biology, Integrative Biology, Predictive Biology

The pursuit of science is based on empiricism enabled by advancing technologies. Theories then emerge that unify our understanding of natural order. The trinity of experimentation, theory, and technology that underlies the scientific method cannot be placed into a hierarchy of importance. Theoretical fields quickly lose substance in the absence of robust experimentation, and theoretical conundr...

Principles of Integrative Gastroenterology

Theoretical principles for biology: Organization.

In the search of a theory of biological organisms, we propose to adopt organization as a theoretical principle. Organization constitutes an overarching hypothesis that frames the intelligibility of biological objects, by characterizing their relevant aspects. After a succinct historical survey on the understanding of organization in the organicist tradition, we offer a specific characterization...