Semantics column

This quarter's Semantics column features an article by Jean Krivine, a CNRS researcher who is a member of the Proofs, Programs and Systems group that forms a part of the Institute for Fundamental Research in Informatics (IRIF) at Université Paris Diderot. Jean is leader in the application of computer science to Systems Biology, a broad area whose research activities range from biologists in wet labs, to computational scientists devising simulations based on mathematical models, to computer scientists developing models based on computer science models and their underlying principles. Jean's column highlights the tension that arises when wet lab researchers, who are accustomed to time-tested research methodologies, confront new approaches driven by novel applications of computer science and its principles to the problems they face. The column also describes the issues computer scientists face if they want to have a significant impact in a related discipline. Last but surely not least, Jean's description of the Kappa language and its application to protein interactions provides an impressive example of how concurrency theory and techniques developed within computer science can usefully be applied in a related discipline.