How to think about biology in a chemical way and its implications for education

CHED 1451

Leroy Hood, lhood@systemsbiology.org, Institute for Systems Biology, 1441 North 34th Street, Seattle, WA 98103
I will discuss the fact that “biology is an informational science” and that the basic currency of biological information is a fascinating series of chemicals known as DNA, RNA, proteins and biological networks. I will also discuss how the challenge of decoding biological complexity resides in this informational view of biology, in systems approaches to biology and medicine, in the emergence of powerful new chemical measurement (nanotechnology) technologies, and in the pioneering of computational and mathematical tools for dealing with comprehensive or global data sets. I will provide examples of these approaches and consider their implications for science education at the undergraduate and graduate levels. One key point will be the power of a cross-disciplinary and broad scientific education.