Systems Medicine

Olaf Wolkenhauer has made considerable contributions to popularize the systems biology approach and is the founding editor of the first international journal in systems biology. He received first degrees in control engineering from University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg, Germany and the University of Portsmouth, U.K. in 1994 and his Ph.D. from UMIST in Manchester in 1997. Before moving to Rostock, where he occupies the Chair in Systems Biology & Bioinformatics, he worked as a research lectureship at the Control systems Centre in Manchester, a joint senior lectureship between the Department of Biomolecular Sciences and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, at UMIST. In April 2009 he received the Pioneer Award of the SPIE organisation for achievements in the field of systems biology. He holds an adjunct professorship at Case Western Reserve University in the US and became in 2005 a fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS). He has coordinated the first FP6 cancer systems biology project COBICS, the STREP SysMed and initiated the Coordination Action CASYM (www.casym.eu). He is a regular advisor to the European Commission and various national funding bodies and has been responsible for several policy papers, including the European Science Foundation Report 35. Olaf Wolkenhauer's research focuses on data analysis, mathematical modelling and computer simulations in the life sciences. The methodologies developed and applied in his Department come from Dynamical Systems Theory (in particular nonlinear differential equations and stochastic approaches) and Mathematical General Systems Theory (for the analysis of multilevel systems).