Introduction to Systems Biology - Design Principles of Biological Circuits, by Uri Alon.
It opened my eyes to a whole new field that will become a massive industry over the coming decades. Much like a Systems course in engineering covers recurring design patterns in physical systems (feedback loops, noise filters, pulse generators, etc), this book uses the same approach for biological systems. It is written from an engineer's perspective using engineering language, which for me makes biology much easier to understand.
It's perhaps more precise to say that some biologists disagree (as is perhaps inevitable). Alon's book is was the required textbook for the Systems Bioengineering (III) class at Johns Hopkins as of 5 years ago (which is when I took it). It's definitely well within the mainstream of the field.
It opened my eyes to a whole new field that will become a massive industry over the coming decades. Much like a Systems course in engineering covers recurring design patterns in physical systems (feedback loops, noise filters, pulse generators, etc), this book uses the same approach for biological systems. It is written from an engineer's perspective using engineering language, which for me makes biology much easier to understand.