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Damn, I missed this article while it was higher up on the page. Not sure if there are enough people around but I'll ask my question nonetheless. """Venter: Wel
by checker659 16y ago
Damn, I missed this article while it was higher up on the page. Not sure if there are enough people around but I'll ask my question nonetheless.
"""Venter: Well, the goal is multifold. We have to start by creating minimal cells. A human cell is too complex -- we have no idea how any human cell works. We don't even know how the simplest bacterial cell works."""
Do we have no idea how a cell works? I know we understand the anatomy but I had no idea we hadn't moved beyond that? Is this some kind of satire/joke or is this where the state of the science is at?
- z92 16y agoUnfortunately, as I understand it, that is this where the state of the science is at. Physics can now explain most of chemical processes, but it's still unable to explain even basic biological processes. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
- danielford 16y agoI think what he's getting at is that you can look at the genome of E. coli, which was sequenced in the nineties, and is one of the most common model systems used in research, but we don't know what the functions of a lot of those genes are. Last time I heard anything about this we had no idea what twenty percent of its genes did. That number may be off by ten to fifteen percent either way, since I haven't read anything on the topic in years, and it's going to depend on the parameters you set for how sure you are about a gene's function. Keep in mind that this doesn't mean we're completely clueless about how the cell works, just that there's still a lot of work to do.