A new jouvence in physiology

Physiology, or integrative biology, is currently facing the enormous accumu lation of data produced by the genome programmes, and has la find new jouve nces. Several areas were proposed in this article. (1) Several progresses f n gene transfer technology, including transgenic technology gave rise to a new concept, namely reverse physiology. Nevertheless, reverse physiology ha s also to account for transregulations and, developmental modifications. (2 ) Studies on biological oscillators, either at the organ level (cardiac or respiratory rhythms) or at a cellular level (calcium or cAMP oscillations) were recently developed using new computer programmes that facilitate both non linear analysis and cross-analysis, (3) Functional genomics derived fro m genomics, nevertheless it is for the moment limited to transcripts. It sh ould, become a tool to study and integrate the, whole cell activity providi ng proteins and function could be approached in the same way. The Physiome project is one of the projects that aim to both facilitate access to data f rom the genome project and to develop integrative programmes.