Category: Uncategorized

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE concludes this weekend on the thoughts of Professor Denis Nobel, one of the outstanding biological thinkers today. He moves biology forward by challenging older dogmas, in particular, the centrality of the genome. We are watching history unfold as a new set of paradigms replaces the previous leap forward in molecular biology. View in LinkedIn

CELLULAR ECOSYSTEMS. "The coupling of the fate of each cell to the nature of the interactions it can establish with other cells has led to the concept of 'social control' of cell survival and cell death, allowing a stringent regulation of cell numbers, of their geographic localization, and a constant adjustment of the different cell types that constitute our organs and tissues." https://lnkd.in/ditmMXA View in LinkedIn

GRAVE PROBLEM. “It is relatively easy to show that complete bottom-up reconstructions from the level of molecules to the level of whole organs would require much more computing power than we are ever likely to have available.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

PARTICLES ARE CONTEXTUAL. “Biological reductionists whose motivation is that of reducing biology to physics need to be aware that physics itself also displays the kind of limits I am describing here. Nor are these limits restricted to particle theory.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

REDUCTIONISM. “The idea is that if a phenomenon is too complex to understand at level X then go down to level Y and see, first, whether the interactions at level Y are easier to understand and theorize about, then, second, see whether from that understanding one can automatically understand level X.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

REDUCTIONISM VERSUS EMERGENCE. “Reference to emergence leads me to a fundamental point about the limits of reductionism. An important motivation towards reductionism is that of reducing complexity.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

EPIGENETIC SPANNER IN THE DOGMA. “The induction mechanisms emerge as the embryo interacts with its environment. Morphogenesis is not entirely hard-wired into the genome.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

DOGMAS FAIL. “Cardiac rhythm is clearly integrated at the level of the pacemaker sinus node cell, and does not even exist below that level. The principle can be restated in a more precise way by saying that the level at which each function is integrated is at least partly a matter of experimental discovery. There should be no dogmas when it comes to causation in biological systems.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

TWO WAY FLOW. “I and my colleagues have expressed many of the ideas briefly outlined here in the form of some principles of systems biology. One of those principles is that, a priori, there is no privileged level of causation in biological systems. Determining the level at which a function is integrated is an empirical question.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn

EVERYTHING IS CONTEXTUAL. “A difference in DNA sequence may have a wide variety of possible phenotypic effects, including no effect at all, until the boundary conditions are set, including the actions of many other genes, the metabolic and other states of the cell or organism, and the environment in which the organism exists.” http://rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/1/55 View in LinkedIn