Systems biology is an emerging field which provides tools and methods for a better understanding of the behavior of cellular systems. In systems biology experimental approaches with focus on "omics" technologies are combined with sophisticated theoretical approaches to first describe a system at hand and secondly, control and design the system for various application.
The development of meaningful models combining experimental data from different cellular levels is still a challenge, not only for basic research but also for applications in medicine and biotechnology.
Therefore, as an example for basic research, various models for the carbohydrate uptake of the bacterium E. coli are introduced. It could be shown that the behavior of the system and its most important features could be described with a small network motif, the feed-forward loop. Finally, possible approaches for tools and methods form systems biology to problems related to biotechnology are discussed. A second intention of the talk is to give an overview on current research activities as a basis for further collaborations within the Munich systems biology community.