S-System Analysis of Biological Systems

For a long time, the major goal of biological and medical research was a more and more detailed analysis of the elementary parts of an organism. Now, in some of the simpler organisms like Escherichia coli, a very large number of proteins (Bloch et al., 1980) and many other compounds are known and the question arises how these elements work and interact in an integrated system. On a theoretical level, the first approach in answering this question has been a linear systems analysis that is based on the multitude of simple but powerful methods of linear mathematics. However, biological and medical phenomena often are quite nonlinear, and in most cases their underlying processes cannot simply be studied separately and then superimposed again, because these processes may influence each other. That is, a biological system as a whole frequently reacts differently than the sun of all its components. Such a system is called “cooperative” (if you like Latin) or “synergistic” (if you prefer Greek).