In his splendid article "Can a biologist fix a radio? - or, what I learned while studying apoptosis," Y. Lazebnik argues that when one uses the right tools, similarity between a biological system, like a signal transduction pathway, and an engineered system, like a radio, may not seem so superficial. Here I advance this idea by focusing on the notion of robustness as a unifying lens through which to view complexity in biological and engineered systems. I show that electronic amplifiers and gene expression circuits share remarkable similarities in their dynamics and robustness properties. I explore robustness features and limitations in biology and engineering and highlight the role of negative feedback in shaping both.
CITATION STYLE
Khammash, M. (2016, March 23). An engineering viewpoint on biological robustness. BMC Biology. BioMed Central Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-016-0241-x
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