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April 15 - July 10, 2024
There are more than seventy different kinds of proteins that make up various intermediate filaments.
Mitochondria don’t have an autonomous existence; they can live only inside cells.
“The dream of every cell is to become two cells”
mitos, the Greek word for “thread.”
meion, the Greek word for “lessening.”
chromosomes—“colored bodies,”
homotypic, or “conservative,” cell division: the parent cell and the daughter cells ended up with the same, conserved number of chromosomes.III
The life cycle for a multicellular organism, in short, could be reconceived as a rather simple back-and-forth game between meiosis and mitosis.
What the fruit fly had been to early genetics, the urchin would be to the study of the cell cycle.
They are partners and collaborators—functionally, genetically, biochemically, physically linked. They are the yin and yang of cell division.
they are partners in cell cycle control;
Isn’t all of medicine “artificial”?
We don’t reproduce like rabbits. Our eggs need a little more seduction.
rate of fertilization increased vastly if you increased the alkalinity of the solution;
G2, then, must be a discerning guardian, knowing when to look and when to look away.
What began as a treatment for human infertility is now being repurposed as a therapy for human vulnerability.
most astonishing feature of multicellularity is that it evolved independently, and in multiple different species, not just once, but many, many times.
every single-celled organism that evolved toward multicellularity took a unique path.
Darwin’s Galápagos Islands captured in a bottle.
the multicellular cluster acquires an evolutionary edge.
epigenesis, loosely reflecting the idea that genesis occurred through a cascade of embryological alterations that impinged upon or above (epi) the developing zygote.
he was among the first to identify the formation of distinct organs in the embryo:
“It is becoming aware of the form with which Nature, so to speak, always plays,” he wrote in 1786, “and playing brings forth manifold life.”
“Life not so much ‘is’ as ‘becomes.’ ”
ectoderm will give rise to everything that faces the outer surface of the body:
endoderm produces everything that faces the inner surface of the body, such as the intestines and the lungs.
mesoderm handles everything in the middle: muscle, bo...
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GPS of the developing embryo, determining the position and axis of the internal organs as well as secreting proteins called inducers.
We used to think about the fundamental features of our cells as our destiny, manifest. We are now beginning to treat these properties as legitimate arenas of scientific annexation—manifest destiny.
Every organ in the body exemplifies these features: cooperativity between cells and cellular specialization to achieve the function of the organ.
cooperation, defense, tolerance, and self-recognition, the hallmarks embodying the benefits and liabilities of multicellularity.
central mechanism of long-distance communication, of transmission, in humans.
the collapse of one piece of the net can lead to the collapse of the whole net.
The transmission of every substance in the body, and, by extension, the operation of every organ, then, depends on the most restless of all our cells.
transfusion and banking—cellular therapy—stands as the most significant medical legacy of the war.
a fleet of teenage soldiers deployed to battle.
Some version of the innate response is found in virtually every multicellular creature.
The innate system is not just among the most ancient, but, being the first responder, the most crucial to our immunity.
She is the anti-inflammatory goddess.
vaccine carries the memory of Jenner’s experiment: it is derived from vacca, Latin for “cow.”
vaccination is that it is, at first, a manipulation of the innate immune system.
began to wonder if the specific affinity of a chemical for a particular cell could be used not just to stain a cell but also to kill it. This idea was the basis of his discovery of the antibiotic Salvarsan in 1910
they do not have any learned or adaptive capacity to direct their attack on a specific pathogen. Nor do they retain any memory of a particular pathogen
a “body” produced to defend the body.
Every cell in the body, he argued, displayed an immense set of unique proteins—side chains, he called them—attached to its surface.
by changing the side chain of a chemical substance, you could change the binding properties, or specific affinity, of an antibody.
the cell turned out so much cell-bound antibody that it was ultimately secreted into the blood.
substance bound by the antibody—the toxin or the foreign protein—was soon termed an antigen: a substance that generates an antibody.
The activated B cells, with T cell help, also become memory B cells.
Mammals, including humans, don’t have a cloacal bursa.
