Institute for Systems Biology

The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is a non-profit research institution located in Seattle, Washington, United States. ISB concentrates on systems biology, the study of relationships and interactions between various parts of biological systems, and advocates an interdisciplinary approach to biological research.

Systems biology is the study of biological systems in a holistic manner by integrating data at all levels of the biological information hierarchy, from global down to the individual organism, and below down to the molecular level. The vision of ISB is to integrate these concepts using a cross-disciplinary approach combining the efforts of biologists, chemists, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and physicians.

On its website, ISB has defined four areas of focus:

Leroy Hood co-founded the Institute with Alan Aderem and Ruedi Aebersold in 2000.

However, the story of how ISB got started actually begins in 1990. Lee Hood was the director of a large molecular biotechnology lab at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and was a key advisor in the Human Genome Project, having overseen development of machines that were instrumental to its later success. The University of Washington (UW), like many other universities, was eager to recruit Hood, but had neither the space nor the money to accommodate Hood's large laboratory.

Lee Huntsman, director of University of Washington's Center for Bioengineering, was attending a University of Washington football game, sharing a luxury box with Bill Gates, the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft. Huntsman took the opportunity to tell Gates about Hood. Bill Gates already had a considerable interest in biotechnology, both as a philanthropist and as an investor, and after meeting Hood, donated $12 million to UW to enable him to head a new department of molecular biotechnology, where Hood continues to hold a faculty position as the Gates Professor of Molecular Biotechnology.

ISB represents a spin-off of Hood's labs at UW.

ISB is in the top ranks of scientific institutions worldwide. In 2012, the SCImago Research Group, based in Spain, ranked ISB 4th worldwide on its Excellence Rate scale.