Towards a Semantic Description of Bio-Models: Meaning Facets - A Case Study

Systems Biology reconstructs biological phenomena in order to develop explanatory models of living systems. These models are represented precisely in terms of mathematical expressions. However, the meaning of a model usually is not formally specified but only described in natural language. Here, we discuss a framework for specifying the meaning of bio-models. We show that semantics appears on different levels: the meaning of the model as a whole, the meaning of the model’s components, and the meaning of the model’s behaviour. Each level has an intrinsic and extrinsic facet. We illustrate our framework by sketching what must be considered for a formal semantics of two simple numerical models of the cell cycle.