ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses where systems biology stands at present and where it might go in the near future. It first presents some challenging application areas awaiting systems analysis and then lists some of the foreseeable modeling needs and theoretical developments. Many complex diseases, and even normal development and aging, are insufficiently understood, and systems biology may provide some of the tools to address them in a holistic manner. An example of how molecular and systems biology have begun to reach out to investigations of global ocean processes is a study on marine cyanobacteria, which are among the most abundant organisms on Earth. The hallmark of systems biology is a global, integrated approach to biological challenges. While division of labor has been one of the greatest inventions, there is a real risk of losing information and insight when systems biology is strictly separated into experiments and model analyses.
