ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors introduce systems biology, which is a new scientific field, starting only about two decades ago. Modern systems biology analyzes a large quantity of data that is produced by the “omics,” such as genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, among others. Systems biology is much more developed than prebiotic systems chemistry. The overall goal of systems biology is the same as that of biology, namely, to understand how life functions. According to Ricard, the living systems are characterized by the properties such as their ability to reproduce, their identity, and capacity to evolve. Ricard explores the possibility that an encapsulated network of proteinoid-catalyzed chemical reactions can exhibit some types of spontaneous duplication and self-organization, which he has studied with mathematical models. Ricard’s mathematical approach in studying simple chemical systems starts with consideration of probabilities of events within the system.
