title: No question about exciting questions in cell biology.
abstract: Although we have a good grasp of many important processes in cell biology, including knowledge of many molecules involved and how they interact with each other, we still do not understand most of the dynamical features that are the essence of living systems. Fortunately, we now have the ability to dissect biological systems in enough detail to understand their dynamics, including the use of mathematical models to account for past observations and predict future experiments. This deep level of mechanistic understanding should be our goal—not simply to satisfy our scientific curiosity, but also to understand the causes of disease well enough to predict risks, make early diagnoses, and treat effectively. Many big questions remain to be answered before we reach this goal of understanding cellular dynamics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America ; Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America ; Department of Cell Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America.
authors.forename: Thomas D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Pollard
mesh_terms: D003585:Cell Biology; D002468:Cell Physiological Phenomena / Q000502:physiology; D002477:Cells / Q000378:metabolism / Q000648:ultrastructure; D003584:Cytological Techniques / Q000379:methods; D008967:Molecular Biology / Q000379:methods