Computational Thinking in Biology

The paper presents a new approach based on process calculi to systems modeling suitable for biological systems. The main characteristic of process calculi is a linguistic description level to define incrementally and compositionally executable models. The formalism is suitable to be exploited on the same system at different levels of abstractions connected through well defined formal rules. The abstraction principle that represents biological entities as interacting computational units is the basis of the computational thinking that can help biology to unravel the functions of the cell machinery. We discuss then the perspectives that process calculi can open to life sciences and the impact that this can in turn produce on computer science.