If you really want to understand how a biological pathway works, build one
Amber Biology was recently commissioned by a biotechnology company, to build a dynamic, agent-based model of the biological pathways that the company's scientists were studying as part of their research and development program. The agent-based model allowed us to do some very interesting, virtual "what-if" experiments such as: What if the activity of this regulatory protein was only at 50% of its level in normal, healthy cells? How would the response of this pathway be different in a cell where this gene was deficient or knocked out.