How biological cells including platelets and megakaryocytes decide complex problems fast but risky

Abstract

Short AbstractMathematical decision processes are accurate but sometimes take very long time or simply do not happen. Decisions in biology happen fast and driven by evolution, optimizing survival chances. This results in stochastic decisions with on average good adaptation to the environment but an inherent risk of individual errors e.g. developing cancer during cell regeneration. We calculate and show in platelets and megakaryocytes how cellular decision processes increases risk for errors and inflammation. Short cut solutions adapted from nature improve computer strategies for protein folding and network decision processes. Complex problems are not always solved in foreseeable time, instead the fast solutions in biology speed up errors everywhere including biochemical aging of blood vessels, misfolded proteins, mis-programmed cells, cancer and heart failure. One sentence abstractWe investigate in biological networks how complex decision problems are mastered not by an accurate but unforeseeable long mathematical search but rather pragmatic and fast, with an inherent risk of error, a basis for inflammation and cancer.