The International Systems Biology Conference (ICSB) is the highly-anticipated main event for the global systems biology community. The 15th ICSB continues the annual series of conferences launched by the International Society of Systems Biology (ISSB) in Tokyo in 2000, by Hiroaki Kitano. It attracts top system biologists from all over the world to an environment that encourages integration of biology, computer science, engineering and chemistry, and that spans leading areas of biomedical research. This year's conference theme Systems Biology: The Fifth Element seeks to capture the multiple facets that comprise a systems understanding of life, as a single common thread that unifies seemingly different approaches: · mapping and modeling macromolecular and cellular networks · understanding cellular organization · information flow and logical relationships · mathematical modeling of local molecular relationships · de novo engineering of molecular circuits (synthetic biology)