You're right, they're only approximations at different levels, as a 1:1 reproduction of even a single cell would be unfeasible.
Most of them are built around one specific, measurable, phenotype that they want to reproduce, like estimate metabolite input/output over time.
Some others attempt to model the behavior of these cells when interacting with others, like in a colony or tissue. This is quite important because most of the phenomena that enables development, healing, regeneration, etc ... are emergent processes that only make sense when you study the whole tissue. One concrete thing you can measure/simulate here is "if I drop this hormone here, where is it going to be at time X and at what concentration" [1], which is super useful to do in silico because measuring that in real tissue, without or even with markers, is much more complicated, expensive and time consuming.
1: I wrote one of the first models that was able to do this in realistic plant tissue. Realistic here means, bounded by the chemical/physical constraints found in real plants and using a structural scaffold that resembles them as well.
Most of them are built around one specific, measurable, phenotype that they want to reproduce, like estimate metabolite input/output over time.
Some others attempt to model the behavior of these cells when interacting with others, like in a colony or tissue. This is quite important because most of the phenomena that enables development, healing, regeneration, etc ... are emergent processes that only make sense when you study the whole tissue. One concrete thing you can measure/simulate here is "if I drop this hormone here, where is it going to be at time X and at what concentration" [1], which is super useful to do in silico because measuring that in real tissue, without or even with markers, is much more complicated, expensive and time consuming.
1: I wrote one of the first models that was able to do this in realistic plant tissue. Realistic here means, bounded by the chemical/physical constraints found in real plants and using a structural scaffold that resembles them as well.