Think Tank 3

Noise and Stochasticity

Description:
Stochastic intracellular processes contribute to cellular heterogeneity in isogenic populations. In the living cell, molecules often behave stochastically rather than deterministically. Molecules typically move in an erratic diffusive fashion and interact stochastically: chemical reactions and, equally important, physical interactions are probabilistic in nature. These factors become particularly important when the concentrations are low. In the living cell, proteins are often present in low copy numbers, and as a result, biochemical networks can be highly stochastic giving rise to stochastic dynamics qualitatively different from deterministic dynamics. A prime example is given by gene expression. Not only the DNA itself, but also the gene regulatory proteins that control gene expression, are often present in very low numbers. This think tank focuses on discussing and on identifying challenging experimental and theoretical approaches to study impact of noise on functional eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell behaviour.

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