In recent years formal methods from concurrency theory and process calculi have gained increasing importance in modelling complex biological systems. In this paper propensity to biological interaction, as seen by the shape spaces theory, is given a linguistic interpretation. Entities from the living matter are viewed as terms of a formal concurrent language of processes with typed interaction sites. The types are strings, and interaction depends on their distance. Further, the language is associated with syntax-driven rules that permit the inference of the possible computational behaviours of the specified biological system. This approach leads to the use of all the methods and techniques developed in the context of formal languages (e.g., language translation, model checking), opening new ways of studying complex biological systems.

Keywords:
Shape spaces, Hamming distance, Process calculi, Mathematical modelling of cellular systems
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© 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel
2004
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