Alice in "Bio-Land": Engineering Challenges in the World of Life Sciences

Author

Benso, Alfredo ; Di Carlo, S. ; Politano, Gianfranco ; Savino, Alessandro ; Bucci, Enrico

Author_Institution

Politec. di Torino, Turin, Italy

Volume

16

Issue

4

fYear

2014

fDate

July-Aug. 2014

Firstpage

38

Lastpage

47

Abstract

Alice is an engineer who ventures into the research world of life sciences. To her eyes, life sciences researchers work backwards compared to what happens in her world. It appears that their research methodology has a number of issues that may limit its potential. Nevertheless, she also becomes aware that a different set of problems arises if her own traditional top-down engineering approach is applied to life sciences. This article discusses how the authors see the role of systems and computational biology as a fundamental methodological "middle-ground" between these two (apparently) distant worlds. This article is part of a special issue on life sciences computing.

Keywords

biology computing; bio-land; computational biology; life sciences; methodological middle-ground; research methodology; systems biology; top-down engineering approach; Biological system modeling; Computational modeling; Computer applications; Research and development; Reverse engineering; Science - general; bioinformatics; information technology; life science; scientific computing; systems biology;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

IT Professional

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1520-9202

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MITP.2014.45

Filename

6871732