INTRODUCTIONThe q-bio Conference and the associated q-bio Summer School were started in 2007 by a prescient group of researchers based at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the University of New Mexico (J.Edwards,J.Faeder,W.Hlavacek,Y.Jiang,I.Nemenman and M.Wall) who envisioned a systems biology community focused on modeling,simulations and targeted experiments to advance the fundamental understanding of biological regulation.Sponsorship for the initial 2007 conference and school came from the Center for Nonlinear Studies at LANL,with additional support from the LANL Institute for Advanced Studies,the New Mexico Consortium,the Molecular Sciences Institute,the Center for the Spatiotemporal Modeling of Cell Signaling,and the University of New Mexico Cancer Center.qbio is now a well-established inteational systems biology event in July/August of each year and is currently registering participants for its 8th meeting and summer school (http://q-bio.org/wiki/The_Eighth_q-bio_Conference or http://q-bio.org/wiki/The_Eighth_q-bio_Summer_ School).