
Introduction 11
niques which can generate -omics level data sets has made possible the simulta-
neous monitoring of the activity of thousands of genes and the concentrations
of proteins and metabolites. This data, and its analysis using sophisticated
bioinformatics tools, makes possible for the first time the study of microscopic
dynamic interactions among cellular co mponents at a quantitative level. Al-
though much of this data is still of extremely poor quality (when compared
to the data on physical systems that control engineers have traditionally had
access to ), these new measurement technologies have opened the door for the
application of control ...