How far are we from fully understanding and mathematically modeling the metabolism of bacteria like E. Coli or Mycoplasma?

[cirosantilli]

https://www.quora.com/unanswered/How-far-are-we-from-fully-understanding-the-metabolism-of-bacteria-like-E-Coli-or-Mycoplasma

It's only ~500 genes on mycoplasma, 3k on E. Coli how hard can it be :-)

And what are the main missing pieces in your opinion?

I'm pretty 100% sure that the lack of visibility is the main thing there, so if it comes down to that, what is the type of visibility that we need, and what is the most promising way you think we will get there? Looking at you, mass spectroscopy: https://github.com/cirosantilli/issues/issues/11

Or are we so far from that kind of understanding, that we have no idea how close we are?