Cell Biology: The Endless Frontier

"Hard days on the endless frontier" revisited.

Due to the intensive Ph.D. program launched by the Hungarian government 3 years ago, I recently had the chance to be one of the examiners in numerous doctoral exams. Talking to other Hungarian and foreign colleagues, I think that my alarming experience can be generalized: our recent doctors in the field of life sciences are quite outstanding experts in their particular specialized field and res...

Perceptions of science. Deep-sea biology: living with the endless frontier.

I n the summer of 1833, Edward Forbes set sail from his home on the Isle of Man for Norway, where he and a friend intended to do some " botanizing " and rock-collecting. Years later he would become known as the father of deep-sea biology; but then, he was just a budding naturalist, 18 years of age, loose of limb, long of hair, and very eager. In Bergen, Forbes checked into a rooming house and f...

3D cell biology - the expanding frontier.

I am very pleased to introduce this Special Issue. When Michael Way invited me to serve as the inaugural Guest Editor at Journal of Cell Science, we discussed how to capture our mutual excitement about current research in 3D cell biology. My own research seeks to elucidate how molecularly regulated changes in cell behavior drive alterations in the structure and function of mammalian organs. Spe...

Evolutionary cell biology: functional insight from "endless forms most beautiful".

In animal and fungal model organisms, the complexities of cell biology have been analyzed in exquisite detail and much is known about how these organisms function at the cellular level. However, the model organisms cell biologists generally use include only a tiny fraction of the true diversity of eukaryotic cellular forms. The divergent cellular processes observed in these more distant lineage...

Cell and tissue mechanics: the new cell biology frontier