Page 192 - The Miracle in the Cell Membrane

The Miracle in the Cell Membrane

The many cur rent ly known details con sti tute a field that no
med i cal stu dent can mas ter, yet the pores of the net work rela -
tion ship in ques tion have not even prop er ly opened them selves
to mod ern phys i o log i cal research. Although we are still at the
begin ning of the road, we must not for get that the mech a nisms
of the net work that reg u lates this "inter nal envi ron ment" we
are refer ring to here have a fluid prop er ty. 59
The com mu ni ca tion among cells, touched on here in
only very super fi cial terms, pos sess es a com plex i ty that
has occu pied sci en tists for dec ades. Many vol umes have
been writ ten on the sub ject. For that rea son, the infor ma -
tion obtained by sci en tists is sub stan tial, but nev er the less
super fi cial. There are many issues to con sid er here. How
do the cells take and imple ment deci sions? They assume
respon si bil i ty for the pro tec tion of other cells they have
never seen, so care ful ly as not to over look the slight est
detail. They are suf fi cient ly far sight ed to recog nize dan -
ger. How did they acquire such sen si tiv i ty, meas ure ment
and tim ing? In addi tion, how is it pos si ble for them to
make other cells around them aware of what they need to
know, to warn them, set them in oper a tion, seek help and
act on what other cells tell them in turn? It is a vio la tion
of rea son and logic to claim that cells acquired all these
abil i ties by blind coin ci dence.
Furthermore, pro teins bring the mes sa ges to the cells,
receive mes sa ges and eval u ate them. The gates and
pump ing sys tems that con trol entry to and depar ture
from the cells are pro teins too. Proteins accel er ate chem -

190