This book is based on the proceedings of the inaugural symposium "Northwest Symposium for Systems Biology". Particular focus is on identifying current breakthrough technologies and their application to important model systems. By integrating computational sciences, high-throughput technologies and quantitative biology, this book will advance the understanding of not just the function of individual genes, proteins and smaller molecules like hormones, but also how all of these molecules interact within a cell. This volume will be a collection of presentations on four topics that comprise the scope of the Genomes to Life project recently announced by the Department of Energy. They are four aspects of a system biology approach to understanding microbial communities. These topics include complex microbial systems, gene regulatory networks, molecular machines/ multiprotein complexes and computational techniques. The range of material covered will include the following: -Molecular biological methods for the analysis of complex microbial communities and the use of specific bacterial species for bioremediation, -The study of gene regulation through the use of genomics as well as specific regulation in bacteria (by methylation) and in yeast (via signal transduction pathways), -Structure and function of multiprotein complexes involved in protein degradation, muscle function and protein kinase attachments in cells, -Computational approaches to the analysis of large data sets to yield useful information.