The driving passion of molecular cell biologists is to understand the molecular mechanisms that control important aspects of cell physiology, but this ambition is often limited by the wealth of molecular details currently known about these mechanisms. Their complexity overwhelms our intuitive notions of how molecular regulatory networks might respond under normal and stressful conditions. To make progress we need a new paradigm for connecting molecular biology to cell physiology. We suggest an approach that uses precise mathematical methods to associate the qualitative features of dynamical systems, as conveyed by 'bifurcation diagrams', with 'signal–response' curves measured by cell biologists.

分子细胞生物学家的主要热情是了解控制细胞生理学重要方面的分子机制，但这种雄心往往受到目前已知的有关这些机制的大量分子细节的限制。它们的复杂性压倒了我们关于分子调控网络在正常和压力条件下可能如何反应的直觉观念。为了取得进展，我们需要一种将分子生物学与细胞生理学联系起来的新范式。我们建议使用精确的数学方法将动力系统的定性特征与细胞生物学家测量的“信号-响应”曲线联系起来，如“分叉图”所表达的那样。