NECESSARY ACCIDENTS 15 YEARS AFTER
This review summarizes results of cell modeling based on the assumption that cell behavior is determined by random discrete competing transcription events. The foundations of this assumption and its relationships with other stochastic approaches to cell behaviour are briefly discussed. It is shown that the discrete event paradigm provides for a unified approach to fundamental aspects of cell behaviour including cell passage through the restriction point of the cell cycle, intermitotic time variability, the shape of intermitotic time distributions, cell choices between proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis, Hayflick limit, and cell ability to cycle without cyclins and cyclin dependent kinases, which are traditionally treated in terms of the continuous dynamic paradigm operating with concentrations and continuous process rates.