Research

Like any other form of life, the human being is a complex system made up of elementary components. Each component has its own functions, but through the interaction with other components, they give rise to overall properties of the system that are more than the sum of its parts. Physicists call these “emergent properties”. Studies on complex systems and their emergent properties earned the Italian physicist Giorgio Parisi the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2021. A flock of birds, a single cell and the cells in an organism are all examples of complex systems based on emergent properties.

Understanding the interactions between the components is fundamental to understanding biological systems, including human physiology and its pathological dysfunctions.

HT researchers will investigate the emergent properties of biological systems across scales and how these evolve over time. They will adopt a multi-scale systems biology approach, allowing holistic investigations of biological systems and their components across different levels of complexity. Systems biology requires a combination of experiments, theory and computer science. Theory will help design experiments, whereas computational and Artificial Intelligence-based methods will be used to extract biological information from complex datasets. Predictive models will allow (in)validating experiments, and biophysical modelling will help predict the influence of biological and physical factors on complex systems. This interdisciplinary method, coupled with cutting-edge scientific infrastructure, provides HT with the tools to become a centre of excellence for biomedical research at the national and international levels.