Systems biology is an area of academic endeavor defined as the integration of multiple disciplines enabling modeling of biological systems in health and disease. The application of systems biology to human physiology and pathophysiology is termed Integrative Systems Biology. This emerging academic discipline focuses on multi-scale modeling of the physiome, where time from nano-seconds to decades, and biology from protein-protein interaction to organ-organ systems are understood. A key new scholarly area of theory and practice within this field is integration of distinct academic disciplines into collaborative inter-disciplinary teams, where methods are developed to break down traditional academic barriers (Integrative Systems Biology). Systems biology is a stated focus of the NIH RoadMap for transforming biomedical research, and Universities and Medical Schools have recently begun acknowledging Systems Biology as a new academic discipline.
The Department of Genomics and Precision Medicine (formerly the Department of Integrative Systems Biology) is housed within the Research Center for Genetic Medicine at Children’s National Health System. ISB houses 35 faculty with diverse yet integrated research interests, including computer science and bioinformatics, genomics, proteomics, and clinical medicine.