Laboratories at the Institute for Systems Biology sport magnificent views across the sailboat-cluttered waters of Lake Union, with the hilly downtown of Seattle as a backdrop. On this unusually sunny and warm June day, graced by an endless turquoise sky, the large windows provide an entrancing, even romantic, view. And it well suits the young institute, which has built itself around one of the grandest of biological visions.

Systems biology, one of the hottest fields to spring from the Human Genome Project, defies a simple description. It promises nothing less than to reshape the way that scientists think about how the human body works, providing clues to unraveling the complexities of illness and ultimately leading to new medicines to prevent and treat disease. But even the Institute for Systems Biology's Web site prominently raises the question "What is systems biology?", then offers an answer that fills six full screens of a computer monitor.