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Systems biology standards—the community speaks

Nature Biotechnology volume 25, pages 390–391 (2007)Cite this article

To the editor:

Your editorial 'Standard operating procedures” in the November issue (Nat. Biotechnol. 24, 1299, 2006) highlights the impetus for standards development in biology. Such standards are particularly important in the area of systems biology, which aims to build models and quantitative simulations of complex biological systems. In particular, standards concerning modeling workflows, data formats and model publication are needed to facilitate collaboration and communication between modelers and experimenters from diverse scientific backgrounds. Various aspects of standardization have already been addressed, such as minimal requirements in the annotation of biochemical models (MIRIAM1), compatibility of tools for kinetic modeling2 and lessons that can be drawn from standards in high-throughput technologies3. Standardization is intensely debated in the systems biology community and plays a major role on the level of research politics: almost all systems biology projects that are currently funded by the European Commission (Brussels) promise to develop or define standards.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants of the European Community to E.K.: the Yeast Systems Biology Network (YSBN, EU-Project No FP6-2004-LSH-5 # 018942), European Modelling Initiative Combating Complex Diseases (EMICD) (EU-Project No 503269), Quantifying Signal Transduction (QUASI) (EU-Project No LSHG-CT2003-530203) and European Network of Excellence Enabling Systems Biology (ENFIN) (EU-Project No LSHG-CT-2005-518254). We are very grateful to all researchers who filled in a questionnaire and thereby contributed to its success.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Otto Warburg Laboratory, Ihnestrasse 73, Berlin, 14195, Germany

    Edda Klipp, Wolfram Liebermeister, Anselm Helbig, Axel Kowald & Jörg Schaber

  2. Ruhr University Bochum, Ruhr-University Bochum, Medical Proteom-Center, Universitaetsstrasse 150, Bochum, 44801, Germany

    Axel Kowald

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  1. Edda Klipp
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  2. Wolfram Liebermeister
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Klipp, E., Liebermeister, W., Helbig, A. et al. Systems biology standards—the community speaks. Nat Biotechnol 25, 390–391 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0407-390

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