The magazine Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News has published an article reporting on several talks given at the recent Department of Systems Biology Inaugural Symposium.

Author Richard A. Stein writes:

“Science is more than a body of knowledge, it’s a way of thinking,” remarked Carl Sagan, and probably his words were never more powerfully relevant than for portraying one of the newest biomedical fields, systems biology.

A recent symposium inaugurating the department of systems biology at Columbia University Medical Center comes at a very auspicious time, one in which biomedical sciences, chemistry, physics, engineering, bioinformatics, and computer sciences are converging to shape a vibrant new discipline.

The article includes summaries of presentations by Department of Systems Biology faculty members Barry Honig (protein-protein interactions), Saeed Tavazoie (gene expression dynamics), Virginia Cornish (synthetic chemistry using yeast), and Peter Sims (high-throughput single-cell measurement), as well as keynote speaker James Collins (antibiotics and the microbiome).

You can read the full article here.