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The Columbia University Systems Biology Initiative seeks to uphold its mission of extending educational and professional opportunities to those interested in the field of systems biology. At the intersection of medicine, biological research, engineering, and computer science, systems biology is a rapidly growing field that provides science with the ability to manipulate life processes more effectively than ever. We explore complex biological interactions through the engineering of new biological mechanisms that currently do not exist, the redesigning of biological mechanisms for a synthetic purpose, and the computational modeling of complex biological systems. The great potential and vast applications of this field are already beginning to unfold.

 

We seek to organize interactive, collaborative, and informative events, such as industry and research panels, programming workshops, and trips to local lectures. All of these aim to expose students to the forefront of the innovative work being done in systems biology, to teach them valuable, tangible skills that they can apply in their future pursuits, and to increase their awareness of the crucial role increasingly quantitative methods are playing in shaping the future of biology. Given the implication of systems biology with policy, legal issues, and public health initiatives, events are often interdisciplinary and involve collaborations. The group also seeks to provide opportunities for professional networking through career-oriented events that will not only allow students to interact with researchers and professionals in the field of medical informatics, but also fill a critical gap on campus, given that there are currently no other groups on campus devoted to this field.

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To learn more about what SBI does and our impact on the campus community, we detail our current projects, club structure, and biweekly meeting times and locations here:

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