Systems Medicine

by Uri Alon

Why do we get certain diseases, whereas other diseases do not exist? In this book, Alon, one of the founders of systems biology, builds a foundation for systems medicine. Starting from basic laws, the book derives why physiological circuits are built the way they are. The circuits have fragilities that explain specific diseases and offer new strategies to treat them. By the end, the reader will be able to use simple and powerful mathematical models to describe physiological circuits. The book explores, in three parts, hormone circuits, immune circuits, and aging and age-related disease. It culminates in a periodic table of diseases. Alon writes in a style accessible to a broad range of readers - undergraduates, graduates, or researchers from computational or biological backgrounds. The level of math is friendly and the math can even be bypassed altogether. For instructors and readers who want to go deeper, the book includes dozens of exercises that have been rigorously tested in the classroom

Genres: Biology, Science, Mathematics

270 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2023

Reviews

[Quim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so amazing. Strong recommendation. I didn't know any physiology going in.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary bulletin from the frontier of medicine.

Probably all of us have heard confusing news about the science of aging, metabolic disease, and degenerative disease. Now at last Uri Alon puts the pieces together with simple mathematical models that quantitatively explain a wealth of real phenomena that I, for one, had never grasped could be related. The power of applying simple and well-understood phenomena from the nonliving world is on full display here. Alon also communicates it all beautifully and as simply as possible. I have never read a book remotely like this short masterpiece.