But technology will ultimately and usefully be better served by following the spirit of Eddington, by attempting to provide enough time and intellectual space for those who want to invest themselves in exploration of levels beyond the genome independently of any quick promises for still quicker solutions to extremely complex problems. Strohman RC (1977) Nature Biotech 15:199

    Systems Biology includes the study of interaction networks and, in particular, their dynamic and spatiotemporal aspects. It typically requires the import of concepts from across the disciplines and crosstalk between theory, benchwork, modelling and simulation. The quintessence of Systems Biology is the discovery of the design principles of Life. The logical next step is to apply these principles to synthesize biological systems. This engineering of biology is the ultimate goal of Synthetic Biology: the rational conception and construction of complex systems based on, or inspired by, biology, and endowed with functions that may be absent in Nature.

Open to a wide range of students, postdoctoral fellows and seasoned researchers, this cross-disciplinary Thematic Research School on the Advances in Systems and Synthetic Biology covers five main topics this year:

• RNA and biochemical circuits engineering
• Formal methods, dynamical systems
• Control theory - networks
• Yeast modeling
• Synthetic genomics & non-canonical biochemistry

AIMS

• Renewal and strengthening of research in modelling and engineering for biology,
• Development of a crossdisciplinary community for researchers in these topics,
• Dissemination of methodologies for modelling with biological applications,
• Broadening or switching the research themes of the participants.

STRUCTURE

Five full days with an attendance of about 80 researchers, half of them biologists.

Morning:

• Two conferences in English, each comprising 30 min of introduction to the topic, 30 min of research seminar, and 30 min Q&A.

Afternoon:

• Hands-on Tutorials with demonstrations of modelling tools,
• Posters and selected Talks by Students and Post-docs,
• Poster sessions,
• Meetings between experimentalists with biological data requiring interpretation and modellers with the requisite tools.

Evening:

• "Biology and Ethics" talk.

The Thematic School organises an international workshop for Students and post-doc, with selected oral presentations. More information on the Student Workshop webpage.

HISTORICAL NOTE

This annual School started in 2002. It was the first School dedicated to Systems Biology in France, and perhaps in Europe. Since 2005, Synthetic Biology has played an increasingly important role in the School. Generally, the topics covered by the School have changed from year to year to accompany and sometimes precede a rapidly evolving scientific landscape. Its title has evolved in 2004 and again in 2012 to reflect these changes. The first School was held near Grenoble after which the School has been held in various locations. It started under the auspices of Genopole^®, and has been supported by the CNRS since 2003, as well as by several other sponsors over the years.

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