How systems work (or not) – economics, delivery and more (…or some of what I...
‘How systems work’ is already a theme of these blogs, in that the general properties of systems – typically seen (mathematically) as ‘graphs’ of objects that interact with each other – are assumed by...
View ArticleOn distributions of scientific activity and productivity
The availability of many records in digital format opens up many possibilities, not least in bibliometrics, a subject that I anticipate will be a regular feature of these blogs. For this blog we are...
View ArticleHormesis – the Goldilocks Science of systems pharmacology
The story of Goldilocks and the three bears is sufficiently well known not to need repeating here, its chief point for our purposes being that there was an optimum in everything she tried, whether it...
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Channelling biotechnological production by molecular engineering
Molecular biology, as does systems biology, relies heavily on the development of novel techniques for the study of biological systems and their subsequent exploitation. Thus, X-ray crystallography...
View ArticleInstitutes, systems and evolution
We usually think of evolution in terms of biological organisms, but systems and organisations are also subject to evolutionary change, based at least in part on natural selection. This is not a novel...
View ArticleSystems microscopy, Rothamsted, Wales, banking and bioenergy
My first appointment last week was to give the welcoming address at the opening of the Systems Microscopy Centre in Manchester, led by Mike White. The Department of Bioenergy and Climate Change...
View ArticleCarbon, metabolism and management
Since I had almost no external visits in last week’s Bank Holiday-truncated schedule – although I did have one of my regular 1:1 meetings with Sir Mark Walport of the Wellcome Trust – I shall ruminate...
View ArticleSystems medicine, polyomics and funding interdisciplinary science
Last week, in between multiple internal meetings in Swindon, I gave talks (or more accurately a rather similar talk twice…) at two events. The first was a very interesting conference on systems...
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MRC, e-science, ABPI and partnerships
The first external meeting of the week was to fulfil, with Director of Science Prof Melanie Welham, an invitation to discuss areas of mutual scientific interest with the Strategy Board of the Medical...
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