Design Challenge 7

Challenge Background

My awareness of systems analysis and concepts of complexity and emergence arose out of SciArt collaborations with Jane Prophet under the auspices of the Wellcome Trust, curated by Peter Ride, and then subsequently working with Mark d’Inverno. My descriptions of my own basic science and clinical work regarding stem cell behavior (i.e. plasticity, stochasticity, "cellular uncertainty") recalled various aspects of "hive mind" and in group behaviors and of "quenched disorder" in complex systems.  Subsequent reading in that area and working the extended CELL team that eventually grew out of our first meetings (members: Jane Prophet, Mark d’Inverno, Peter Ride and Rob Saunders) have revealed to me the exceptional explanatory and organization power of these concepts (see papers under publications on this website with d’Inverno and Prophet but especially doc.1, doc.2, link4) and how they might apply to a wide range of questions regarding biological systems.
 
While complexity analysis is almost a commonplace in many of the "hard" and social sciences, its applications to the biological sciences have not, as yet, been widely explored, particularly in terms of cell and molecular biology.  Tools which might be useful in teaching the topics to a non-mathematically savvy audience (of both scientists and laypeople) could help to promote this perspective and thereby help move biology forward in significant ways.