Algorithmic Systems Biology: An Opportunity for Computer Science

The convergence between computer science and biology occurred in successive waves involving deeper and deeper concepts of computing. The current status makes computer science a suitable candidate to become a philosophical foundation for systems biology with the same importance as mathematics, chemistry and physics. However, this great opportunity is not a free lunch. New development and a strong integration of different fields of computing are needed to cope with the challenges of systems biology: a complex and expanding applicative domain that can open completely new avenues of research in computing and eventually help it become a natural, quantitative science. © ACM, 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Communications of the ACM, {52(5):80-88 (May 2009)} doi:10.1145/1506409.1506427, http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/5/24650-algorithmic-systems-biology/abstract