An introductory textbook that about the emerging field of complex biological systems analysis has recently earned the 2026 Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) Textbook Excellence Award.
The book, “A First Course in Systems Biology,” by Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering professors Melissa Kemp and Eberhard Voit, is one of 24 textbooks to be recognized for contributing to academic and educational publishing.
“I have found it exciting to communicate material we have been teaching in our biomedical engineering classes to a broader audience through developing this textbook. I'm grateful to TAA for recognizing the effort we put into our educational materials,” said Kemp.
Kemp and Voit released the third edition of the textbook last spring. The latest version offered a simplified introduction to systems biology targeted to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.
The book, according to publisher CRC Books, gives a foundation on computational models, an in-depth overview of biological design principles and delves into groundbreaking fields of synthetic biology and personalized medicine.
Voit, now Emeritus Professor in the Coulter Department, wrote the first two editions and worked with Kemp to develop the third to be user-friendly for students.
“We are very excited and gratified that our book has been chosen for the TAA Excellence Award, because its introductory style, rich illustrations, simple and complex examples, as well as numerous references to the literature, make the new field of systems biology uniquely accessible to students and researchers across the biomedical sciences,” added Voit.
