Month: September 2022

HIGH VOLUME. “In a very short time we have witnessed the development of high-throughput biology, forcing us to consider cellular processes in toto. Even though much of the data is noisy and today partially inconsistent and incomplete, this has been a radical shift in the way we tear apart problems one interaction at a time.” https://lnkd.in/dwxby67 View in LinkedIn

TOOLS DRIVE CONCEPTS. “When coupled with gene deletions by RNAi and classical methods, and with the use of chemical tools tailored to proteins and protein domains, these high-throughput techniques become still more powerful.” https://lnkd.in/dwxby67 View in LinkedIn

THE ORIGINS. “When genetics separated from the rest of biology in the early part of the 20th century, most geneticists sought to understand heredity and chose to study traits in the organism that could be easily scored and could be used to reveal genetic mechanisms.” https://lnkd.in/dwxby67 View in LinkedIn

MACRO AND MICRO. “Some geneticists, including a large school in Russia in the early 20th century, continued to study the genetics of natural populations, focusing on traits important for survival. That branch of genetics is coming back strongly with the power of phenotypic assays on the RNA and protein level.” https://lnkd.in/dwxby67 View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this section on the relationship between gene sequence and function. In the early days of gene cloning, when it was generally thought that if you cloned a disease gene and knew its protein product, such as dystrophin in Duchenne muscular dystrophy, then the path to a therapy was straightforward. It was not: it was contextual, how that protein is located and interacting in the cell. And in this case, assigning function to a pure gene sequence was thought to be an easy step. But similarly, the story turned out to be much more complex. View in LinkedIn

CHANGE OF EMAIL, effective immediately: Nigel.fleming@catab.net http://Nigel.fleming@catab.net View in LinkedIn

DIRECTED EVOLUTION is being done in the test tube and by fast breeding creatures today. This represents a moment where human intervention substitutes for slow random natural processes. It is a remarkable step, as full of promise as it is of peril. But like it or not, the genie is out of the bottle, and no amount of hand-wringing is going to put that back in the safe. Better to understand it, and try and be as smart as we can, a very tall order for humanity. View in LinkedIn

NATURAL EVOLUTION. "Over time, random genetic mutations occur within an organism's genetic code, of which beneficial mutations are preserved because they are beneficial to survival." https://lnkd.in/d6DMQsV View in LinkedIn

"DIRECTED EVOLUTION mimics natural evolution in the laboratory (in vitro), but operates on a molecular level (i.e. no new organisms are created) and focuses on specific molecular properties. Does not require forethought of what type of mutations are beneficial. Lack of detailed knowledge is compensated for by use of a powerful selection/screening method based on the concept of the survival of the fittest." https://lnkd.in/d6DMQsV View in LinkedIn

PCR AND CRISPR are two innovations in the field of molecular biology that have irrevocably changed science, medicine and how we can view the future. PCR was invented in 1985, and CRISPR as a genomic tool in 2012. Due to the giant amount written about both, I chose to give them rather scant treatment, but inclusion by reference with enormous implications in this string of thoughts. View in LinkedIn