Cells and Molecules - Brutes or Angels: Human Possibility in the Age of Biotechnology - page 1

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Cells and molecules
The Unity of life
long ago it became evident that the key to every biological problem
must finally be sought in the cell; for every living organism is, or at
sometime has been, a cell.
—edmond B. Wilson, The Cell in Development
and Heredity (Genes, Cells, and Organisms)
on August 20, 1979, Newsweek magazine sported a cover with a beautiful
color cartoon of a single cell and its interior. This and the accompanying
story, “secrets of the human Cell,” illustrated the prominence and rele-
vance of cell biology for the general public that was evident more than
thirty years ago. since then, discoveries in cell biology and biotechnology
have given rise to the so-called new biology that increasingly influences
how we are conceived, how we live, and when we die.
Cells comprise our bodies; cells, in turn, are comprised of chemical
units called molecules. Why does knowing about cells and molecules mat-
ter? every biotechnology discussed in this topic, from stem cells and cloning
to genetic enhancement and age retardation, has its foundation in cellular and
molecular biology. Quite literally, cells are us. We are made of cells, some
twelve trillion of them. not only do cells comprise or manufacture all the
parts of our physical bodies, but they also make us thinking, rational, even
spiritual beings. Writing about the 100 trillion cell-to-cell communica-
tion sites ( synapses ) inside the human brain, neuroscientist Joseph leDoux
(2002, ix) puts it this way, “you are your synapses. . . . They are the chan-
nels of communication between brain cells, and the means by which most
of what the brain does is accomplished.”