The Seven Stones is the blog of Molecular Systems Biology, the open-access journal published by the Nature Publishing Group and EMBO, which covers all aspects of the rapidly growing and interdisciplinary field of systems biology at the molecular level.

Why a blog? A forum for open discussions with a dynamic content is a natural extension of Molecular Systems Biology open-access philosophy and we would very much like to see this blog develop into a vibrant exchange platform for all scientists interested in the fields of Systems and Synthetic Biology.

The topics that will be discussed will include all aspects of Systems and Synthetic Biology, including technical matters, general scientific issues and societal aspects. To help retrieve entries but also to provocatively probe the extent of the field of Systems Biology, we will classify all blog posts using a set of nested subject categories (visible on the left navigation bar), somewhat reminiscent of a 'pocket' ontology for research fields in Systems Biology.

The blog will be seeded by the Editors of the journal, but posts from our readers are more than welcome. Please send us your posts to .

Enjoy!