Wednesday, October 01, 2008
The past decades have seen radical developments in the area of biology. As a result, our vision of biological systems has changed. It appears that generating vast amounts of data is simply not enough to understand and explain the functioning of biological systems.
Systems biology is an approach in which the functioning of biological entities is studied at system level. A system can be interpreted at various levels, from cell to organism. Expectations are that the increase in knowledge resulting from systems biology research will have a major impact, both in social and economic terms, on the medical and pharmaceutical sector. This could open the way to “personalized medicine”, “multidrug treatments” and new drugs.
Consolidation of Systems Biology
“The Consolidation of systems biology research – stimulating the widespread adoption of systems approaches in biotechnology, biomedicine and agri-food” (ERASysBio+) is a European research programme in the field of systems biology that is financed by research organisations in the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Finland, France, Israel, Slovenia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and the European Union. Participation by the Netherlands is financed by ZonMw, in partnership with the NWO Earth and Life Sciences (ALW). The purpose of the ERASysBio+ call is to stimulate international, interdisciplinary cooperation in systems biology research.
ZonMw has reserved a budget of €1 million with which to finance Dutch participation in various projects as part of this European programme. Further information about the programme and project proposal forms will be available from end September 2008 on www.erasysbio.net and www.zonmw.nl/erasysbio.
Deadline for submission of preliminary applications is 5 January 2009.