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GREAT IDEAS OF BIOLOGY
Paul Nurse
KITP Public Lecture, Feb 24, 2010
THE CELL
The basic unit of life
ROBERT HOOKE’S MICROSCOPE
Cork Image: Past
Present
STEM IMAGES: PAST AND PRESENT
Nehemiah Grew (1682)
ANTONI VAN LEEUWENHOEK
MICROORGANISMS
VAN LEEUWENHOEK?
THEODOR SCHWANN
“We have seen that all
organisms are composed of
essentially like parts,
namely, of cells.” (1839)
RUDOLF VIRCHOW
“Every animal appears as a
sum of vital units, each of
which bears in itself the
complete characteristics of
life.” (1858)
CELL
Rockefeller Nobel Prize
Winners in Cell Biology
George E. Palade (1974)
Christian de Duve (1974)
Albert Claude (1974)
Günter Blobel (1999)
MAMMALIAN EMBRYO
SPERM AND EGG
THE CELL
The basic unit of life
Underpins all reproduction and development
Stem cells
THE GENE
Basis of heredity
GREGOR MENDEL
MENDEL’S GARDEN
PEAS
PEAS
19TH CENTURY CHROMOSOMES
EDOUARD VAN BENEDEN’S
NEMATODE CHROMOSOMES
PNEUMOCOCCUS
Avery, MacLeod and McCarty, Rockefeller University (1944)
DNA MOLECULE
CENTRAL DOGMA
THE GENE
Basis of heredity
Genotype to phenotype
Implications for what we are
EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION
Life evolves
Mechanism of natural selection
ERASMUS AND CHARLES DARWIN
TREE OF LIFE
FINCH’S BEAKS
CELL REPRODUCTION AND
NATURAL SELECTION
CHARLES DARWIN
“...whilst this planet has
gone cycling on according
to the fixed law of gravity,
from so simple
a beginning endless forms
most beautiful and most
wonderful have been, and
are being evolved.”
EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION
All life evolves and is related by descent
Natural selection major mechanism
Kin selection relevant to altruism and morality
Should be stewards for our “relatives”
LIFE AS CHEMISTRY
Chemistry and physics are mechanistic basis of life
ANTOINE LAVOISIER
LAVOISIER
LOUIS PASTEUR
MOLECULAR STRUCTURE
MODEL OF ENZYME ACTION
METABOLISM MAP
CELL WITH COMPARTMENTS
LIFE AS CHEMISTRY
Provide good mechanistic explanation of life
Basis for understanding many diseases
Central to medicine and pharmaceutical industry
BIOLOGY AS AN ORGANIZED SYSTEM
Developing idea
DOUBLE HELIX
GOVERNOR FROM A STEAM ENGINE
SIMPLE EXAMPLES FOR LOGICAL CIRCUITS:
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE FEEDBACK
- Negative Feedback Loop
+ Positive Feedback Loop
ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT
AIRPLANE ROUTE HUBS
NETWORKS AND PATHWAYS
Linear Pathway
Complex Networks
NETWORKS AND PATHWAYS
NETWORKS AND PATHWAYS
MORSE CODE
“The Works of
Shakespeare”
PHAGE
CHEMICAL WAVES FOLLOWING
THE TURING EQUATION
dtq = D∆q + R(q)
JOHN HARRISON’S CLOCKS
THE GREAT IDEAS OF BIOLOGY
The cell
The gene
Evolution by natural selection
Life as chemistry
Biology as an organized system