Table 1.

Various definitions of systems biology.

Source	Quoted definition	Reference
Ideker, Galitski, and Hood	Systems biology does not investigate individual genes or proteins one at a time, as has been the highly successful mode of biology for the past 30 years. Rather, it investigates the behavior and relationships of all of the elements in a particular biological system while it is functioning.	Ideker et al., 20011
Wikipedia	A biology-based inter-disciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological systems, using a holistic approach (holism instead of the more traditional reductionism) to biological research.	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_biology
National Institute of General Medical Sciences	An integrated approach in biomedical research using physical, computational and experimental sciences to understand complex biological systems.	https://www.nigms.nih.gov/Research/SpecificAreas/SysBio/Pages/default.aspx
National Cancer Institute	A systems biology approach to cancer research […] includes explicit integration of experimental biology and computational modeling to test and validate novel hypotheses or ideas.	https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-CA-15-014.html
National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease	Develop and validate predictive models of infectious disease initiation, progression, and outcomes […] derived from the study of the architecture and dynamics of systems-wide host/pathogen molecular interaction networks during infection, using integrated datasets generated from a combination of “omics” technologies.	https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/systems-biology-infectious-diseases-research
National Science Foundation	A comprehensive understanding of emergent properties of biological systems through the development of an integrated theoretical framework that is guided by mathematical and physical principles and facilitated through the use of novel tools	https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=504863