From information to knowledge
Protoplasma
From information to knowledge
Peter Nick 0
0 Molecular Cell Biology, Botanical Institute, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , Karlsruhe , Germany
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We live in the era of information technology, and science has
been moulded by technological progress that allows to process
gigantic quantities of data. Whereas just two decades ago, the
results from a typical experiment were stored and analysed on
floppy discs (with one disc holding maximally 1 Mb), these
days especially the data from a cell biological experiment
easily range with many gigabytes. Generating information is
fairly easy. But are we using this information really
efficiently? It seems, rather not, we are actually overwhelmed by the
sheer quantity of apparently irrelevant data. To transform
information into knowledge, we need something very
old-fashioned: questions and concepts. Even the most sophisticated
omics approach will not lead us anywhere, if we do not invest
considerable effort to ask questions before we start the
experiment, and, a second time, when we are structuring the data by
linking them to our initial question and the concepts
developed in the respective field. Thus, information per se does not
lead to knowledge, we need to do something with this
information to render it fruitful. It is a question of structuring,
questioning, comparing, and, more important than anything
else, filtering, filtering, filtering. Fortunately, there are fellow
scientists that are helping us in this digestion process, by
critical reviews. A critical review is quite different from a mere
compilation of the literature published on a given topic. A
critical review can be seen as a kind of distillation process,
where the central concepts and their alternatives are presented
in a manner that is clear and crisp enough to be used as a
criterion to subsequently judge and sort the often ambiguous
or even seemingly contradictive original reports. To write a
critical review, it therefore requires clarity of thought,
experience, and, more than anything else, courage.
Having recognised the importance of critical reviews,
Protoplasma could convince David Robinson, Heidelberg,
to join the editorial board as review editor. He has shaped plant
cell biology for many years by important contributions to
intracellular trafficking in plants. Brought up in the
Anglosaxon tradition of critical scientific debate with
academic stations in Leeds and Stanford, his major scientific life took
place in Germany, where he first worked for quite some time
in Göttingen and moved on 2000 to Heidelberg. During this
time, he contributed not only stimulating, sometimes
controversial viewpoints on the numerous open issues of vesicle
flow in plants, but also was always active in connecting plant
and animal communities. As a review editor, he had been
extremely prolific, soliciting reviews from numerous fields
of cell biology and always pursuing the tradition of critical
reviews, which significantly contributed to the rise in impact
factor seen over the past years. After a long and fruitful
academic activity, he now decided to hand over this mission to the
next generation.
Returning to the interdisciplinary roots of cell biology,
which was initiated as a discipline through the cell theory
developed in discussions between the animal physiologist
Theodor Schwann and the botanist Matthias Jakob
Schleiden
(Nick and Stick 2014)
, the journal not only
reactivated the original tradition of two editors (plant and
fungal versus animal and medical cell biology) but also decided
to duplicate the line of critical reviews by nominating two
review editors that will continue David Robinson’s mission:
Jaideep Mathur has been a scientific voyager, with respect
to both research and geography. Starting his academic life in
India, he used the prospects of the just reunited Europe and
moved to Szeged, Hungary, and soon after to the Max-Planck
However, as shown exemplarily for cathepsins and
legumain
(Brix et al. 2015)
, a deeper mechanistic
understanding of the cellular aspects can contribute to design applications
more efficiently. To bridge the gap between animal cell
biology and medical application, clear concepts are highly
relevant, which was one of the motivations to nominate a review
editor for the field of animal and medical cell biology.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest The author declares that he has no competing
interests.
Brix K , McInnes J , Al-Hashimi A , Rehders M , Tamhane T , Haugen MH ( 2015 ) Proteolysis mediated by cysteine cathepsins and legumainrecent advances and cell biological challenges . Protoplasma 252 : 755 - 774
Nick P , Stick R ( 2014 ) Transcending borders-integrating cell biology in the new Protoplasma . Protoplasma 251 : 989 - 990
Schattat M , Barton K , Mathur J ( 2015 ) The myth of interconnected plastids and related phenomena . Protoplasma 252 : 359 - 371