I'm a computational biologist with an academic background in theoretical physics. My research is focused on gene regulation, which refers to the complex network of molecular interactions by which cells control which genes are expressed in response to changing environmental conditions. I use a systems biology approach to study gene regulation, with an emphasis on mammals, immune cells, and inflammation. In my colloquium I will provide an introduction to the field of systems biology and an overview of the important roles that dynamical modeling and inverse problems play in studying gene regulation. I will use examples from my previous work studying mechanisms of gene regulation in fungi and in mammals to illustrate the role of dynamical modeling in systems biology. As an example of an inverse problem in systems biology, I will discuss my recent work in studying gene regulation in macrophages in atherosclerosis, using data integration and machine-learning methods. Amount of biology background required for this colloquium: epsilon.