ABSTRACT
An epoch is rapidly approaching in which the sequence of many organismal genomes, including that of humans, will be deciphered and in which a genomics knowledge base will be built on the foundation of the voluminous data. Nevertheless, we envision this period in the near future as a prologue to the era of the cell where life science discovery, especially in the pharmaceutical industry, will be cell centric rather than focused on isolated genes and proteins. New thinking will be required to interpret the exceedingly complex web of molecular processes that compose life at the cellular level. How, then, will we begin to unravel the integration of living components in time and space within cells? We predict that an amalgamation of molecular biological, biochemical, and cell biological disciplines will be tapped to supplant cells into being reporters of their own molecular activities. Furthermore, a novel approach to informatic and bioinformatic knowledge building integrated with a miniaturized platform for cellular data acquisition will become a major force in defining and shaping the molecular circuitry of the cell.
