Reconstruction of multi-scale dynamics

Biological complex systems involve a wide range of time scales: femtoseconds in chemical and enzymic reactions, seconds in metabolic processes, days to months in cells, years in a living organism and millions of years in evolution of populations on Earth.

The same also applies to the range of space scales: nanometers for molecular structures, micrometers for supramolecular assemblies, organelles and cells, centimeters for tissues and organs, and meters for organisms.

Classical approaches (biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology, behavioural and cognitive studies, etc.) usually have a “preferred” scale set by default, mainly due to the principle protocols and experiments being designed to work only at a specific scale.

A major challenge is the definition of the interactions between the different scales in observations, experimentations, models and predictions. For example, the prdiction of the effect of a genomic mutation on the protein's 3D structure requires the definition of the position of the mutation relative to the gene locus, the potential modification of the protein primary sequence and finally the effect on the protein structure. However, the simple models used to date do not generally take into account the dynamics of protein folding.

Finding the pertinent space and time scales for a specific experiment or model is a major issue.