It is often comforting to think in linear terms and to believe that the universe operates in those terms; that complex processes are best discerned on a plane or when moving along a line; that the driver you are following will press the gas pedal when the light turns green – the irregularity of traffic patterns disassembling linear forecasting with a disconcerting regularity that questions the very idea of “patterns.” In fact, traffic patterns are infinite outcomes that are set in motion as responses to random changes in the environment.
They are reactions to motions in a moving environment.
A new study on stem cell differentiation, published in the May 22 issue of Nature, explores the influence of environmental interference and the “noise” that interference creates with respect to cell differentiation.
The conventional scientific view on stem cell differentiation holds that cells are instructed to progress along certain predetermined pathways. This linear position has long been dogged by the unknowns of gene expression noise – and biologists have been encountering that noise in laboratories around the world while trying to glean cures from the promises of stem cell research.
According to ScienceDaily, the new study “supports the idea that cells differentiate through the collective behavior of multiple genes in a network that ultimately leads to just a few endpoints – just as a marble on a hilltop can travel a nearly infinite number of downward paths, only to arrive in the same valley.” In this example, the marble chooses the path based on the terrain: it does not go through the terrain on pre-set coordinates.
“Nature has created an incredibly elegant and simple way of creating variability, and maintaining it at a steady level, enabling cells to respond to changes in their environment in a systematic, controlled way,” said Hannah Chang, a co-author of the finding.
Stem cell research offers broad potential for human civilization. In the same May 22 issue of Nature, UCLA researchers have announced their discovery of Leukemia stem cells, and there have been recent advances against paralysis and families of degenerative diseases with stem cell applications.
The key is in the understanding of the mystery of differentiation and the noise that this mystery speaks – and this new study advances that understanding.