关键词：寿命；复杂系统；生物医学
摘 要：Life can be regarded as a complex system in which genes, gene products, and other metabolites interact with each other. It is an essential step in system biology to uncover these biochemical interactions and organize them into a regulatory network. By inferring a regulatory network, which may contain a large number of components, scientists obtain a wider view of the biological system and a better understanding of its dynamic nature. With the availability of regulatory networks, scientists are able to answer questions such as: "how does a specific biological system respond to external stimulus or treatment," "what is the stable state of a cellular process under certain conditions," and "how will a biological process behave if some portion of the system were abnormal?" With the insights gained from regulatory network reconstruction, scientists have the ability to control and optimize biological systems, which leads to many practical applications in biotechnology and medicine.