Bio-PEPA: A framework for the modelling and analysis of biological systems

In this work we present Bio-PEPA, a process algebra for the modelling and the analysis of biochemical networks. It is a modification of PEPA, originally defined for the performance analysis of computer systems, in order to handle some features of biological models, such as stoichiometry and the use of general kinetic laws. Bio-PEPA may be seen as an intermediate, formal, compositional representation of biological systems, on which different kinds of analyses can be carried out. Bio-PEPA is enriched with some notions of equivalence. Specifically, the isomorphism and strong bisimulation for PEPA have been considered and extended to our language. Finally, we show the translation of a biological model into the new language and we report some analysis results.