Kitano Hiroaki
Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., 3-14-13 Higashi-Gotanda, Shinagawa, Tokyo 141-0022, Japan.
Nat Rev Genet. 2004 Nov;5(11):826-37. doi: 10.1038/nrg1471.
Robustness is a ubiquitously observed property of biological systems. It is considered to be a fundamental feature of complex evolvable systems. It is attained by several underlying principles that are universal to both biological organisms and sophisticated engineering systems. Robustness facilitates evolvability and robust traits are often selected by evolution. Such a mutually beneficial process is made possible by specific architectural features observed in robust systems. But there are trade-offs between robustness, fragility, performance and resource demands, which explain system behaviour, including the patterns of failure. Insights into inherent properties of robust systems will provide us with a better understanding of complex diseases and a guiding principle for therapy design.
稳健性是生物系统普遍存在的一种特性。它被认为是复杂可进化系统的一个基本特征。它是通过一些对生物有机体和复杂工程系统都通用的潜在原理来实现的。稳健性促进了可进化性，而稳健的性状通常会被进化所选择。这样一个互利的过程是由稳健系统中观察到的特定结构特征所促成的。但是在稳健性、脆弱性、性能和资源需求之间存在权衡，这解释了系统行为，包括故障模式。深入了解稳健系统的固有特性将使我们更好地理解复杂疾病，并为治疗设计提供指导原则。
