Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Hellenic Age, and the anomalously high blood glucose had been identified as a
pathology whose solution would be beneficial. Reliable advances in the under-
standing and control of the causes of this disease have been made by our mag-
netic resonance methods. This progress has assuaged the need for questioning
the methods or philosophy of science. Some uncertainties such as pancreatic
failure continue as challenges, practical contingencies, which further study will
probably explain. Disagreements about how to proceed abound, but presumably
many such questions can be resolved by experiment and theory. It is an opti-
mistic, positivistic experimental direction - there is a well-identified question
about the ability to store glucose and we are learning more and more about it.
There being no reason why we will not continue to close in on the reality - and
if there presently are limits to our understanding of pancreatic failure, they are
not disquieting because the methods in place can be expected to improve our
understanding and control.
3. MRS AND MCA FORM A SUCCESSFUL METHODOLOGY FOR
SYSTEMS BIOLOGY
This series of MRS experiments, guided and interpreted by MCA, has created
a reliable molecular explanation of a systems-wide human disease condition.
The understanding developed by these methods shows the powers implicit in
a philosophy built upon the criteria of physics and chemistry and studying a
system that can be defined in physical and chemical terms, with inputs from
biochemistry and genetics.
Here we return to the initial formulation that as scientists we are free to choose
our methods. The method I have been advocating, in the glucose experiments
reaching from molecules to diabetes, is that normative physical explanations of
mechanism, based on experimental and theoretical physical certainties can, in
many important cases, span the gap. However, the systemic property itself must
be described in molecular terms that are compatible with the methodology that
will be used. In the diabetes/glycogen study,
13
C MRS methods for glycogen
detection were turned to the question of diabetes because it had been established
that diabetes was a disease of glucose storage and in mammals glycogen was
the glucose storage compound.
Similarly, present studies of brain energetics, which encompass the rates
of glucose oxidation and their relation to neurotransmitter release, are making
rapid advances in understanding neuronal activities (Shulman & Hyder, 2004).
On the other hand functional imaging studies of psychological concepts, like
memory or consciousness, are becoming mired in scientific uncertainties. The
conceptual assumptions, e.g., memory or consciousness, that are assumed to
be brain activity in an experimental task, are overwhelmed in imaging results
