TY - JOUR
T1 - Toward a systems biology framework for understanding aging and health span
AU - West, Geoffrey B.
AU - Bergman, Aviv
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank all of the participants for the very lively discussion that occurred within the context of the Biology of Aging Summit in September 2008. In addition, AB acknowledges partial support from NIH grants R01-AG028872 and P01-AG027734 and GBW from the NSF grant PHY 0202180. GBW would also like to acknowledge support from the Thaw Charitable Trust and the Bryan and June Zwan Foundation and discussions with Walter Fontana and Michal Jazwinski.
PY - 2009/2
Y1 - 2009/2
N2 - It is argued that aging research is at a stage where it could benefit greatly from a more intense engagement with the perspectives emphasized by systems biology and complexity science. A more integrated, systematic approach is needed if we are ever to have a fully developed, fundamental understanding of aging, longevity, and their relationship to health. A broader, deeper, more quantitative, and predictive conceptual framework can lead to theoretical approaches and realistic models that can be quantitatively confronted with data and, perhaps more importantly, stimulate novel questions and novel experiments. Integral to this is the search for underlying causal multilevel mechanisms and principles that can be quantified and developed into a serious predictive theoretical framework, providing a point of departure for framing a more integrated research agenda.
AB - It is argued that aging research is at a stage where it could benefit greatly from a more intense engagement with the perspectives emphasized by systems biology and complexity science. A more integrated, systematic approach is needed if we are ever to have a fully developed, fundamental understanding of aging, longevity, and their relationship to health. A broader, deeper, more quantitative, and predictive conceptual framework can lead to theoretical approaches and realistic models that can be quantitatively confronted with data and, perhaps more importantly, stimulate novel questions and novel experiments. Integral to this is the search for underlying causal multilevel mechanisms and principles that can be quantified and developed into a serious predictive theoretical framework, providing a point of departure for framing a more integrated research agenda.
KW - Aging
KW - Biology
KW - Health span
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=64949135371&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=64949135371&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/gerona/gln066
DO - 10.1093/gerona/gln066
M3 - Article
C2 - 19223604
AN - SCOPUS:64949135371
SN - 1079-5006
VL - 64
SP - 205
EP - 208
JO - Journals of Gerontology - Series A Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences
JF - Journals of Gerontology - Series A Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences
IS - 2
ER -