Contact: eric.werner@cellnomica.com

Key Words: Genome semantics, minimal multicellular systems, central dogma, systems biology, cancer

Abstract:
Genomes with their complexity and size present what appears to be an impossible challenge. Scientists speak in terms of decades or even centuries before we will understand how genomes and their hosts the cell and the city of cells that make up the multicellular context function. We believe that there will be surprisingly quick progress made in our understanding of genomes. The key is to stop taking the Central Dogma as the only direction in which genome research can scale the semantics of genomes. Instead a top down approach coupled with a bottom up approach may snare the unwieldy beast and make sense of genomes. The method we propose is to take in silico biology seriously. By developing in silico models of genomes cells and multicellular systems we position ourselves to develop a theory of meaning for artificial genomes. Then using that develop a natural semantics of genomes.