Molecular Theory of the Living Cell Concepts, Molecular Mechanisms,
This book presents a comprehensive molecular theory of the living cell based on over thirty concepts, principles and laws imported from thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, chemical kinetics, informatics, computer science, lingui
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Sungchul Ji
Molecular Theory of the Living Cell Concepts, Molecular Mechanisms, and Biomedical Applications
Sungchul Ji PhD Dept. of Pharmacol. & Toxicol. Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy Rutgers University Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA [email protected]
ISBN 978-1-4614-2151-1 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-2152-8 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-2152-8 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2011945682 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
To my wife, Jaehyun Lee, without whose advice, love and encouragement, this book could not have been born.
Preface
There are three main objectives in writing this book – i) to summarize the key experimental observations on the living cell, ii) to develop a molecular theory of the living cell consisting of a set of concepts, molecular mechanisms, laws and principles, and iii) to apply the newly formulated theory of the living cell to solving concrete problems in biology and medicine, including the molecular mechanisms of force-generation in molecular motors (Chap. 8), morphogenesis (Chap. 15), the origin of life (Chap. 13), and evolution itself (Chap. 14). The cell is arguably one of the most complex material systems in nature, in no small part because it is the building block of all living systems, including us. We are cells, and cells are us. To know how cells work, therefore, will contribute to understanding not only how our bodies work, which will advance medicine, but also how our mind works, which may help answer some of the age-old philosophical and religion-related questions from a new perspective. It is hoped that the molecular theory of the living cell presented in this book will contribute to the emergence of “the new science of human nature” that can lead “to a realistic, biologically informed humanism” (Pinker 2003). As a result of the research efforts of biologists around the world over the past several centuries, especially since the middle of the last century when the DNA double helix was discovered, we now have, as pointed out by de Duve (1991), a complete list of the components that constitute a living cell (e.g., see Table 17.2), and yet we still do not understand how even a single enzyme molecule works. There are ten
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