This focused issue of Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology is entitled "From the century of the genome to the century of the organism: New theoretical approaches." It was developed during Ana M. Soto’s tenure as Blaise Pascal Chair of Biology 2013-15 at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS, Paris, France). Giuseppe Longo was the Pascal Chair host at the ENS. This ongoing theoretical work was also used as the content of a 10 session course attended by graduate students and post-graduates, which took place at the National Museum of Natural History and at the ENS. The attendants of the course encouraged the guest editors to make this material easily available, hence the origin of this PBMB issue. ************** All papers co-authored by G. Longo in free access: https://www.di.ens.fr/users/longo/CIM/SotoLongoSpecIssue.html