The Second International Conference of the French-speaking Society for Theoretical Biology (SFBT) was held June 4–6 2007 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It followed the May 2004 First International Conference of the SFBT, held in Marrakesh, Morocco, and will be followed by the Third International Conference of the SFBT, which will take place in Tunis in June 2010. The SFBT has been meeting yearly since 1985, most frequently in Saint Flour, Cantal, France. These meeting are still held in years where the International Conference is not taking place. During the Annual Meetings and the International Conferences, the participation of students is emphasized by the attribution of a prize for best student poster and/or presentation. In Winnipeg, the René Thom prize was awarded for the first time (Thom was a founding member of SFBT). Recipients of the prize were Virginie LeRolle (best presentation) and Peng T. (Troy) Teo (best poster). The range of topics discussed during SFBT events is quite broad, covering many aspects of theoretical biology ranging from complex mathematical and physical problems to philosophical considerations. The articles published in this special issue serve to illustrate this diversity. Jacques Demongeot considers the notion of biological age, which he opposes to the notion of chronological age. He argues that the number of divisions that a cell has undergone and can still undergo is better suited for the description of cell age, but also of organ age, and presents applications of this notion in various contexts. Alexander Dibrov et al’s contribution deals with a problem of computational chemistry in the Life Sciences. They propose a new method to rank protein-protein interaction models using free energy minimization and present a rational method for

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社论

第二届法语理论生物学学会（SFBT）国际会议于 2007 年 6 月 4 日至 6 日在加拿大曼尼托巴省温尼伯举行。继 2004 年 5 月在摩洛哥马拉喀什举行的第一届 SFBT 国际会议之后，随后将于 2010 年 6 月在突尼斯举行第三届 SFBT 国际会议。 自 1985 年以来，SFBT 每年都召开会议，最常见于法国康塔尔的圣面粉。这些会议仍在没有举行国际会议的年份举行。在年会和国际会议期间，通过颁发最佳学生海报和/或演讲奖来强调学生的参与。在温尼伯，René Thom 奖首次颁发（Thom 是 SFBT 的创始成员）。获奖者是 Virginie LeRolle（最佳展示）和 Peng T.（Troy）Teo（最佳海报）。SFBT 活动期间讨论的主题范围非常广泛，涵盖了理论生物学的许多方面，从复杂的数学和物理问题到哲学考虑。本期特刊中发表的文章有助于说明这种多样性。Jacques Demongeot 考虑了生物年龄的概念，他反对实足年龄的概念。他认为细胞已经经历和仍然可以经历的分裂次数更适合描述细胞年龄，但也更适合描述器官年龄，并提出了这一概念在各种情况下的应用。Alexander Dibrov 等人的贡献涉及生命科学中的计算化学问题。