Streaming complexity
Isolating single processes of a cell is the essence of medical research.
If you want to study an enzyme which converts a substance A to B, you place
the enzyme in a test tube, add substance A and observe how substance B is
created. This what biochemistry is about. In the intact cell the three
substances are processes.
The enzyme is a protein encoded in the DNA and born there.
It then travels from the site of its birth to the site where it will meet
substance A. As it travels through the cell it interacts with other molecules
differentiates and when mature it is ready to convert substance A to B.
Substance A just crossed the cell membrane and streams toward the site where
it will encounter the enzyme. The newly formed B substance will then travel
somewhere else.
What the biochemist observes in the test tube is a static representation
of three ongoing processes. A three dimensional projection of a multidimensional
complexity. It’s like trying to capture the essence of a river in a glass
of water. Chemically river and glass hold water yet when placing the
river in a glass it loses its organization inherent in its stream. Isolation
of your “protein walker” is a simplification of complex dynamics. A faint
shadow of what really happens in the cell.
More on this in
1. Streaming proteins
2. A model of protein assembly:
Biological complexity is always inherited. Yet not the entire complexity
has to be inherited. When sperm and egg unite, each contributes its “minimal
complexity” from which the immense complexity of the organism emerges.
My main research objective is to find ways for simplifying this complexity
without losing its essence.
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