15.30h Geo-Bio Hörsaal

How statisticians and biologists repair a radio together

The goal of systems biology is to understand biological multi-component systems. A well-known essay ("Can a biologist fix a radio?") speculates whether this can be achieved at all with the classical methods of biology. A comparison of the physical model of a radio with the biological model of a signal pathway illuminates the different languages used by the two disciplines to describe multicomponent systems.  In my lecture I will present the available languages, i.e. the different modeling approaches, including their application areas, strengths and weaknesses. I will explain why statistical models will play a prominent role in the future of biology.