The search for principles and methodologies that link the behaviours of molecules (i.e. genes) to system characteristics and functions (i.e. phenotypes) has been the prime occupation of genetics for the last 100 years. We do not think it is appropriate to introduce new terms like systems biology, bioinformatics or computational biology to describe this endeavour. To pay due credit to the immense efforts and achievements of the genetics community, while at the same time recognizing that genetics is undergoing a dramatic transition, we have coined the term integrative genetics.
Where is biology heading?
In this century genetic research will become almost synonymous with the efforts to understand the functional expression of genes within the context of integrated biological systems. We are finally in position to start revealing the causal links between genotype and phenotype in the wide sense. To achieve this, genetics will be forced to become much more inter-disciplinary and theoretically inclined. In this process its statistical, mathematical and computational tools will become substantially more sophisticated, and conceptual and methodological apparatuses, which are today almost totally separated, will become much more integrated.
Motivation for the term "integrative"
We make use of the term integrative because it quite accurately describes the transition genetics is currently undergoing, namely
• Integration of experimental and theoretical approaches in concrete research programmes;
• Integration of processes and mechanisms connecting genotypic data with phenotypic data (in the wide sense) in a coherent mechanistic explanatory structure;
• Integration of the explanatory frameworks of nonlinear system dynamics and statistics.
However...
By this we do not intend to say that terms like computational biology, systems biology and bioinformatics are not appropriate to use in other situations.