ABSTRACT

Praise for the first edition:

superb, beautifully written and organized work that takes an engineering approach to systems biology. Alon provides nicely written appendices to explain the basic mathematical and biological concepts clearly and succinctly without interfering with the main text. He starts with a mathematical description of transcriptional activation and then describes some basic transcription-network motifs (patterns) that can be combined to form larger networks. – Nature

[This text deserves] serious attention from any quantitative scientist who hopes to learn about modern biology … It assumes no prior knowledge of or even interest in biology … One final aspect that must be mentioned is the wonderful set of exercises that accompany each chapter. … Alon’s book should become a standard part of the training of graduate students. – Physics Today

Written for students and researchers, the second edition of this best-selling textbook continues to offer a clear presentation of design principles that govern the structure and behavior of biological systems. It highlights simple, recurring circuit elements that make up the regulation of cells and tissues. Rigorously classroom-tested, this edition includes new chapters on exciting advances made in the last decade.

Features:

  • Includes seven new chapters
  • The new edition has 189 exercises, the previous edition had 66 
  • Offers new examples relevant to human physiology and disease

The book website including course videos can be found here: https://www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/UriAlon/introduction-systems-biology-design-principles-biological-circuits.

part 1|113 pages

Network Motifs

chapter Chapter 1|17 pages

Transcription Networks

Basic Concepts

chapter Chapter 2|16 pages

Autoregulation

A Network Motif

chapter Chapter 3|24 pages

The Feedforward Loop Network Motif

chapter Chapter 5|19 pages

Positive Feedback, Bistability and Memory

chapter Chapter 6|17 pages

How to Build a Biological Oscillator

part 2|110 pages

Robustness

chapter Chapter 7|20 pages

Kinetic Proofreading and Conformational Proofreading

chapter Chapter 8|15 pages

Robust Signaling by Bifunctional Components

chapter Chapter 9|21 pages

Robustness in Bacterial Chemotaxis

chapter Chapter 10|15 pages

Fold-Change Detection

chapter Chapter 11|17 pages

Dynamical Compensation and Mutant Resistance in Tissues

chapter Chapter 12|16 pages

Robust Spatial Patterning in Development

part 3|61 pages

Optimality

chapter Chapter 13|21 pages

Optimal Gene Circuit Design

chapter Chapter 14|24 pages

Multi-Objective Optimality in Biology

chapter Chapter 15|13 pages

Modularity