FAQ

• What is Cellucidate?

  • Cellucidate is a web-based collaborative environment that helps researchers gain a better understanding of complex biological systems. The platform provides straightforward and intuitive access to data and computational technology so that users can easily simulate and explore cellular signaling behavior and leverage the experience and research of the community of users.

• Why is Cellucidate designed as a web-based platform?

  • As a web-based technology, there is no software to install and updates to the system can be incorporated automatically as they are implemented. The community aspects of Cellucidate enable users to easily communicate and collaborate with other researchers from around the world.

• Who is Cellucidate designed for?

  Cellucidate is for all researchers studying cell biology, including systems, quantitative and experimental biologists.

• But I'm an experimental biologist, how will Cellucidate contribute to my research?

  Cellucidate offers researchers an innovative, efficient means for developing biological insights that they would probably have to invest much greater amounts of time and resources to attain using a purely experimental approach. By using Cellucidate to complement work in the laboratory, biologists can generate and test hypotheses to define and design the experiments with the most potentially interesting results.

• Who can see my work online? Can I see other users' work?

  The access control system built into Cellucidate allows only registered users to access the data and operational features of the site. Individual users further determine whether content created or controlled by them will be private, public or shared with individuals and what privileges (e.g. read, write, copy) these other users will have.

• How does Cellucidate enable me to collaborate with others?

  Cellucidate's collaborative environment will provide users with many options for communicating with other scientists by sharing research and data, managing contact lists to connect with other users, and forming user-defined working groups.

• Do I need any special computer hardware to use Cellucidate?

  No. You need to be a registered user of Cellucidate and be running a supported browser with Adobe Flash installed. You may notice some performance differences across browsers - we find this as frustrating as you - and our preferred order is (1) Firefox 3+, (2) Safari 3+, (3) IE 7+ .

• How much does Cellucidate cost?

  There is no charge for Cellucidate during the Public Beta phase. We encourage scientists to explore modeling and simulation features, publish content, collaborate with others, and tell their colleagues and friends about this new technology. When Cellucidate moves into its full commercial release later in 2009, active beta users will be eligible for discounts and preferential terms.

• What is the significance of "Public Beta"?

  As you will see when you start to use Cellucidate, there are many exciting features that are new within the domain of cell signaling. While we have hopefully got many of these right, some of them will need more time or feedback to perfect, and others may need refining in the light of use that is of higher intensity or with different focus than anticipated. We are using this period to gather feedback and suggestions from our user-base and to improve Cellucidate.

  Although we are not charging for access to Cellucidate during this period, we do have some restrictions on the resources that individuals can consume. These are intended to safeguard the system as a whole from undesirable results. If you find that this is getting in the way of what you want to do with Cellucidate, then please let us know and we will review the individual constraints on your account.

• How do I join?

  To join Cellucidate complete the brief registration form and get started today!