Living scaffolds (specialized and unspecialized) for regenerative and therapeutic medicine

The physical sciences have increasingly demonstrated a significant influence on the life sciences. Engineering in particular has shown its input through the development of novel medical devices and processes having significance to the biomedical field. This review introduces and discusses several fiber generation protocols, which have recently undergone development and exploration for directly handling living cells from which continuous cell-bearing or living threads to scaffolds and membranes have been fabricated. In doing so these protocols have not only demonstrated their versatility but also opened several unique possibilities for the use of these scaffolds in a plethora of biological and medical applications. In particular, these living fibrous structural units could be explored for regeneration purposes, e.g., from accelerated wound healing to combating a wide range of pathologies when coupled with gene therapy. Thus, "living entities" such as these scaffolds could be most useful in surgery/medicine, including its exploration with stem cells for the preparation of unspecialized living scaffolds and membranes.     

Scientific progress specific to biology: An epistemological overview

Progresses in leading edge life sciences are undeniable, but there is more to it: from an epistemological perspective, they rest on a paradox vitalizing the very project of biology. Making our understanding of organic functioning all the more objective, life sciences yet exploit a paradigm which structurally rules out any opportunity to explain why biological phenomena are explainable the way we claim they are. As such a blind spot is constitutive of the disciplinary boundaries that condition and permit objective modelling, evolutions in scientists' mode of thought (i.e. paradigm shifts) may require at crucial points some interaction with epistemologists or historians of sciences. The model case of ontophylogenesis thus shows not only how such cooperation can be useful (both in normal science and in transitional contexts), but mostly why it plays a role in helping biology to get out of its intrinsic paradox. The most innovative feature of ontophylogenesis would thus be the following: to give account for the mode of intelligibility it chose by explaining it - in a truly Darwinian manner -in the core of the theory. Though this epistemic move definitely confirms biology to be an autonomous science as long as it faces its constitutive paradox, the methodological detour such realization implied would go through occasional interplay with "exclusively reflexive approaches" - that is to say, humanities.     

Aerodynamically assisted jetting and threading for processing concentrated suspensions containing advanced structural,functional and biological materials

In recent years material sciences have been interpreted right across the physical and the life sciences. Essentially this discipline broadly addresses the materials, processing, and/or fabrication right up to the structure. The materials and structures areas can range from the micro- to the nanometre scale and, in a materials sense, span from the structural, functional to the most complex, namely biological (living cells). It is generally recognised that the processing or fabrication is fundamental in bridging the materials with their structures. In a global perspective, processing has not only contributed to the materials sciences but its very nature has bridged the physical with the life sciences. In this review we discuss one such swiftly emerging fabrication approach having a plethora of applications spanning the physical and life sciences.     

Systems biology in animal sciences

Systems biology is a rapidly expanding field of research and is applied in a number of biological disciplines. In animal sciences, omics approaches are increasingly used, yielding vast amounts of data, but systems biology approaches to extract understanding from these data of biological processes and animal traits are not yet frequently used. This paper aims to explain what systems biology is and which areas of animal sciences could benefit from systems biology approaches. Systems biology aims to understand whole biological systems working as a unit, rather than investigating their individual components. Therefore, systems biology can be considered a holistic approach, as opposed to reductionism. The recently developed 'omics' technologies enable biological sciences to characterize the molecular components of life with ever increasing speed, yielding vast amounts of data. However, biological functions do not follow from the simple addition of the properties of system components, but rather arise from the dynamic interactions of these components. Systems biology combines statistics, bioinformatics and mathematical modeling to integrate and analyze large amounts of data in order to extract a better understanding of the biology from these huge data sets and to predict the behavior of biological systems. A 'system' approach and mathematical modeling in biological sciences are not new in itself, as they were used in biochemistry, physiology and genetics long before the name systems biology was coined. However, the present combination of mass biological data and of computational and modeling tools is unprecedented and truly represents a major paradigm shift in biology. Significant advances have been made using systems biology approaches, especially in the field of bacterial and eukaryotic cells and in human medicine. Similarly, progress is being made with 'system approaches' in animal sciences, providing exciting opportunities to predict and modulate animal traits.     

Theses on Darwin.

The received view that teleology has been successfully eliminated from the modern scientific worldview is challenged. It is argued that both the theory of natural selection and molecular biology presuppose the existence of natural teleology, and so cannot explain it. A number of other issues in the foundations of biology are briefly examined, while stress is laid throughout on empirical evidence of the rational agency inherent in life. It is urged that teleology be rehabilitated and that the reigning functionalist philosophy be replaced by a realistic view of biological functions as emergent properties of living matter within a broad, selforganization framework.     

Bio-electrosprays: a novel electrified jetting methodology for the safe handling and deployment of primary living organisms

Electrohydrodynamic jetting (EHDJ) which is also known as electrosprays (ES) has recently been elucidated as a unique electrified biotechnique for the safe handling and deployment of living organisms. This high intensity electric field driven jetting methodology is now referred to as "bioelectrosprays" (BES). Previously these charged jets have only been shown to jet-process immortalized cells which have undergone expected cellular behavior when compared with control cells. In this paper we demonstrate the ability to jet process primary living organisms in the stable conejetting mode. Finally the viability of the bio-electrosprayed living organisms has been assessed employing a flow cytometry approach which forms the discussion in this paper. Our findings further establish BES as a competing biotechnique, which could be employed for the deposition of primary living organisms according to a predetermined active cellular architecture. One day this could be used for the fabrication of viable tissues and organs for repair or replacement. These advanced studies carried out on BES have direct widespread applications ranging from developmental biology to regenerative and therapeutic medicine, which are a few amongst several other areas of study within the life sciences.     

Time from the viewpoint of Cantor's and post-Cantorian set theory--a contribution to the founding of chronobiology

There is given a survey of the evolution of the idea of time in the mankind's thinking from the beginning down to the term's application in sciences and in the philosophy. As one can point out from some languages, living as well as extincted ones, the words for time are derived etymologically from several roots or stems, respectively, which mostly represent different meanings. But by increasing abstraction in all civilized languages, the process of stripping the different words of their concrete accompaniments led up to a narrow of the diverse meanings which converged towards the common understanding of time in modern sciences. Nevertheless time is no unequivocal term as one can show by linguistic and mathematical analysis. Especially by means of the theory of differential equations and the set theory, the chimerical nature of time is demonstrable, so that time is only an abstraction of abstractions.     

Information forgotten or overlooked: fundamental flaws in the conventional view of the living cell.

Old ideas often persist long after sound evidence dictates otherwise. I attempt to report one such case in the life sciences, by pointing out what are perceived to be fundamental flaws or questions in conventional wisdom. It is my experience that much evidence not in support of the well accepted membrane pump view of the living cell has been overlooked, forgotten or even ignored. In presenting this idea, the evolution of our knowledge from the establishment of cellular and protoplasmic theory to the emergence of solution theory is presented. The universal hypothesis based on physical chemical principles is presented, followed by the advent of the membrane-situated energy-requiring pump. The experimental demonstration of an inadequate energy supply for the first pump is discussed, followed by a review of new evidence that calls to question the use of dilute solution theory in describing adequately cellular function. Finally, roles for cellular water are suggested to explain the cellular exclusion of sodium and to serve as a barometer for the healthy state. Within the context of a metaphor, I attempt to qualitatively embrace the physical findings. It is concluded that the mobility of water molecules may be considered to change with the progression of normal tissue to a state of disease. These changes in the mobility of water molecules are "fingerprinted" by changes in the molecular motion of the solids.     

Bioinformatics in bioinorganic chemistry

Bioinformatics is a central discipline in modern life sciences aimed at describing the complex properties of living organisms starting from large-scale data sets of cellular constituents such as genes and proteins. In order for this wealth of information to provide useful biological knowledge, databases and software tools for data collection, analysis and interpretation need to be developed. In this paper, we review recent advances in the design and implementation of bioinformatics resources devoted to the study of metals in biological systems, a research field traditionally at the heart of bioinorganic chemistry. We show how metalloproteomes can be extracted from genome sequences, how structural properties can be related to function, how databases can be implemented, and how hints on interactions can be obtained from bioinformatics.     

Emergence,therefore antireductionism? A critique of emergent antireductionism

Emergent antireductionism in biological sciences states that even though all living cells and organisms are composed of molecules, molecular wholes are characterized by emergent properties that can only be understood from the perspective of cellular and organismal levels of composition. Thus, an emergence claim (molecular wholes are characterized by emergent properties) is thought to support a form of antireductionism (properties of higher-level molecular wholes can only be understood by taking into account concepts, theories and explanations dealing with higher-level entities). I argue that this argument is flawed: even if molecular wholes are characterized by emergent properties and even if many successful explanations in biology are not molecular, there is no entailment between the two claims.     

Purple Matter, Membranes and ‘Molecular Pumps’ in Rhodopsin Research (1960s–1980s)

In the context of 1960s research on biological membranes, scientists stumbled upon a curiously coloured material substance, which became called the “purple membrane.” Interactions with the material as well as chemical analyses led to the conclusion that the microbial membrane contained a photoactive molecule similar to rhodopsin, the light receptor of animals’ retinae. Until 1975, the find led to the formation of novel objects in science, and subsequently to the development of a field in the molecular life sciences that comprised biophysics, bioenergetics as well as membrane and structural biology. Furthermore, the purple membrane and bacteriorhodopsin, as the photoactive membrane transport protein was baptized, inspired attempts at hybrid bio-optical engineering throughout the 1980s. A central motif of the research field was the identification of a functional biological structure, such as a membrane, with a reactive material substance that could be easily prepared and manipulated. Building on this premise, early purple membrane research will be taken as a case in point to understand the appearance and transformation of objects in science through work with material substances. Here, the role played by a perceptible material and its spontaneous change of colour, or reactivity, casts a different light on objects and experimental practices in the late twentieth century molecular life sciences. With respect to the impact of chemical working and thinking, the purple membrane and rhodopsins represent an influential domain straddling the life and chemical sciences as well as bio- and material technologies, which has received only little historical and philosophical attention. Re-drawing the boundary between the living and the non-enlivened, these researches explain and model organismic activity through the reactivity of macromolecular structures, and thus palpable material substances.     

At the dawn of a new revolution in life sciences

In a recently published article Sydney Brenner argued that the most relevant scientific revolution in biology at his time was the breakthrough of the role of "information" in biology.The fundamental concept that integrates this new biological "information" with matter and energy is the universal Turing machine and von Neumann's self-reproducing machines.In this article we demonstrate that in contrast to Turing/von Neumann machines living cells can really reproduce themselves.Additionally current knowledge on the roles of noncoding RNAs indicates a radical violation of the central dogma of molecular biology and opens the way to a new revolution in life sciences.     

Qualitative theory of stochastic dynamical systems—Applications to life sciences

Qualitative theory for multidimensional stochastic dynamical models is presented where the random influences ξ may be white or colored, i.e. a (possibly bounded) diffusion process. We concentrate on transience, stationary solutions and boundary behavior and discuss a set-up for reliable simulations. The method consists in associating a deterministic control system where the (approximate) controllability properties determine the qualitative behavior of the stochastic system. Applications to some biological systems indicate the usefulness of qualitative theory in life sciences.     

Biological atomism and cell theory

Biological atomism postulates that all life is composed of elementary and indivisible vital units. The activity of a living organism is thus conceived as the result of the activities and interactions of its elementary constituents, each of which individually already exhibits all the attributes proper to life. This paper surveys some of the key episodes in the history of biological atomism, and situates cell theory within this tradition. The atomistic foundations of cell theory are subsequently dissected and discussed, together with the theory's conceptual development and eventual consolidation. This paper then examines the major criticisms that have been waged against cell theory, and argues that these too can be interpreted through the prism of biological atomism as attempts to relocate the true biological atom away from the cell to a level of organization above or below it. Overall, biological atomism provides a useful perspective through which to examine the history and philosophy of cell theory, and it also opens up a new way of thinking about the epistemic decomposition of living organisms that significantly departs from the physicochemical reductionism of mechanistic biology.     

An essay on the evolution of cognition: Constructing a theoretical conceptual framework

In this essay we provide an interdisciplinary approach to the problem of the evolution of human cognition and suggest the theoretical framework of genetic system theory (GST) for organizing the relevant content of several disciplines. This bio-social-cultural theory is based on the assumption that organisms are dynamic systems which interact with one another and their environment and are themselves composed of dynamic internal relations at several levels. Special emphasis will be placed upon these internal cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the physiological mechanisms of learning and memory. The human individual organism is emphasized because in its experiential activity over time it is the site of integration for social, and cultural stimuli and because of its unique properties among living things. The primary disciplines for our discussion are drawn from the biological, social, and humanistic sciences and several concrete examples are given from each science.     

The modulating impact of illumination and background radiation on 8 Hz-induced infrasound effect on physicochemical properties of physiolagical solution

At present, when the level of background ionizing radiation is increasing in a number of world locations, the problem of the study of biological effect of high background radiation becomes one of the extremely important global problems in modern life sciences. The modern research in biophysics proved that water is a most essential target, through which the biological effects of ionizing and non-ionizing radiations are realized. Therefore, there is no doubt about the strong dependency of non-ionizing radiation-induced effect on the level of background radiation. Findings have shown that illumination and background radiation have a strong modulation effect on infrasound-induced impacts on water physicochemical properties, which could also have appropriate effect on living organisms.     

代谢物组学在医药研究中的成功实践

代谢物组学作为后基因时代的一种全新的组学技术。其主要以现代系统生物学为理论基础,以生物体液为研究对象,以现代谱学分析理论和生物样品制备方法为技术支撑,集中生物体内低分子量化学组分进行全息分析和海量数据挖掘,最终明晰机体生物学变化的本质。代谢物组学在功能基因组学、病理生理学、药理毒理学等方面都有着广泛的应用前景。本文以代谢物组学概念化的提出为切入点,着眼于代谢物组学的宽口径应用领域,重点概述代谢物组学在医药领域的成功实践,并对代谢物组学的未来发展做初步构想代谢物组学在功能基因组学、病理生理学、药理毒理学等方面都有着广泛的应用前景。