The Genome Is Not a Recipe for Proteino Hardware

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Most people think that what's packed into our g nome is roughly the equivalent of the instructions you get from ikea or something like that. But if you actually look at, now that we can read genums,you're not going to find anything in there about the size, the shape, the type of symmetry of the organism that's going to come outnd. We currently do not have the ability to look at a genome and guess anything about what the shape of the organism is going to be. And so it's it sort of like you're not getting the design of the icea shelf. You're getting a description of the metal that goes into the screws and and the

As a semi-outsider, it’s fun for me to watch as a new era dawns in biology: one that adds ideas from physics, big data, computer science, and information theory to the usual biological toolkit. One of the big areas of study in this burgeoning field is the relationship between the basic bioinformatic building blocks (genes and proteins) to the macroscopic organism that eventually results. That relationship is not a simple one, as we’re discovering. Standard metaphors notwithstanding, an organism is not a machine based on genetic blueprints. I talk with biologist and information scientist Michael Levin about how information and physical constraints come together to make organisms and selves.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Michael Levin received his Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University. He is currently Distinguished Professor and Vannevar Bush Chair in the Biology department at Tufts University, and serves as director of the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. His work on left-right asymmetric body structures is on Nature’s list of 100 Milestones of Developmental Biology of the Century.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.