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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Systems Biology by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

4.2
stars
554 ratings

About the Course

This course will introduce the student to contemporary Systems Biology focused on mammalian cells, their constituents and their functions. Biology is moving from molecular to modular. As our knowledge of our genome and gene expression deepens and we develop lists of molecules (proteins, lipids, ions) involved in cellular processes, we need to understand how these molecules interact with each other to form modules that act as discrete functional systems. These systems underlie core subcellular processes such as signal transduction, transcription, motility and electrical excitability. In turn these processes come together to exhibit cellular behaviors such as secretion, proliferation and action potentials. What are the properties of such subcellular and cellular systems? What are the mechanisms by which emergent behaviors of systems arise? What types of experiments inform systems-level thinking? Why do we need computation and simulations to understand these systems? The course will develop multiple lines of reasoning to answer the questions listed above. Two major reasoning threads are: the design, execution and interpretation of multivariable experiments that produce large data sets; quantitative reasoning, models and simulations. Examples will be discussed to demonstrate “how” cell- level functions arise and “why” mechanistic knowledge allows us to predict cellular behaviors leading to disease states and drug responses....

Top reviews

SV

Feb 6, 2016

Very useful course in order to learn the basics in systems biology. You only need some training in biology to understand the concepts but the course is easy to follow and very complete.

RI

Jan 15, 2016

Great course! It explains very generally but clearly all different aspects involved in Systems Biology. The material used is good and so are the articles used for learning.

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101 - 114 of 114 Reviews for Introduction to Systems Biology

By Md. M H

Feb 27, 2016

Very very informative course for the beginners like me!

By Jiho C

Mar 9, 2017

Good lecture, but not systematic curriculum

By Mariya P

Nov 26, 2019

Instructor is very hard to engage with.

By Amir B

Jan 1, 2016

a bit to hard for an introduction cours

By Arpita R

Aug 2, 2022

Excellent course work!

By Kang c

Jun 14, 2016

A very useful course!

By Chalasani S S N

Apr 10, 2019

useful

By Jorge A G M

Mar 3, 2023

I have mixed feelings about the course.

In general I greatly appreciate the attempt of organizing a curse on such a complex, highly interdisciplinary, extensive and relatively recent (which implies that not all concepts are yet well defined) field as systems biology is. However, as others have mentioned, it was done in a very poorly way.

My background is in physics and mathematics and over the past 3 years I've been working in computational biology. I've learned a lot about the topics involved in the projects I've worked on, but I was missing an overall, encompassing perspective. This course greatly helped with that. It helped me to order things in my head and to understand 'where' the knowledge I have 'sits' in the scope of systems biology. I also liked the clearly, carefully selected papers and the historical perspective Prof. Iyengar provides on them and on the field.

However, I would not recommend this to a new comer. The only reason I got these things out of it is because of my previous experience, I more or less knew what they were talking about or where to find further info. The presentation of the topics is rather messy and it seems to be assumed that you are familiar with the jargon and technicisms of molecular biology and mathematics, which is adequate for a seminar but horrible as introductory material. The exercises often implement different terminology and conventions and sometimes they involved topics that weren't covered in the lectures nor reading recommendations. Homework and tests are supposed to be challenging, but I expect them to be so (perhaps, a habit from math and physics that doesn't translate to biology) because I need to find a way to combine the concepts I know from class and not because I'm missing half of the information.

By Tom S

Jan 24, 2023

some subjects are mentioned without enough explanation. It seems that the goal is to understand the big picture but sometimes hard to follow without understand the micro details.

By Karl D

Jul 26, 2017

Good overview of systems biology, but the graded tests are somewhat difficult to understand for someone without a biology background such as myself.

By Connie N

Oct 1, 2020

Really interesting content, but could use a rework on formatting, style, and clarity.

By Alan R d F K M

Jan 20, 2020

Could give more basic information about systems theory

By Milena J

Feb 12, 2016

The lectures were somehow chaotic.

By Mainak B

Feb 23, 2020

Tough and brain storming