The molecular processes in living cells take place in a very noisy environment. It is therefore one of the major challenges in cell biology to understand phenomena like structure formation or directed transport in presence of noise.

The goal of this lecture is to provide a non-technical introduction to the theory of stochastic processes and nonequilibrium systems which is relevant for this kind biological processes at the cellular level. Examples will include length regulation of microtubules, cell motility, reaction-diffusion processes, and pattern formation.