Addy Pross

So let me just quote a very respectable biologist from Oxford, Dennis Noble, who said, the general view is that The genome controls the cell. He says it's actually the other way around. The cell controls the genome, okay? That is quite a, you know, that's changing the way one should look at a living system. Now, let me give you an example which is very striking.

So let me just quote a very respectable biologist from Oxford, Dennis Noble, who said, the general view is that The genome controls the cell. He says it's actually the other way around. The cell controls the genome, okay? That is quite a, you know, that's changing the way one should look at a living system. Now, let me give you an example which is very striking.

The CRISPR system, what's her name again? Jennifer Doudna got the Nobel Prize for discovering how to edit DNA. Wonderful invention. Except bacteria discovered that billions of years ago. So it was a copy and paste process there. As I was saying earlier, nature is very clever. But let me just say something here, which is quite extraordinary. A bacterium, a very simple biological system,

The CRISPR system, what's her name again? Jennifer Doudna got the Nobel Prize for discovering how to edit DNA. Wonderful invention. Except bacteria discovered that billions of years ago. So it was a copy and paste process there. As I was saying earlier, nature is very clever. But let me just say something here, which is quite extraordinary. A bacterium, a very simple biological system,

When it is attacked by a virus and the viral attack fails, it takes a little bit of that viral DNA and puts it into its own genome. In other words, it changes its genome. That's not an accidental mutation. That's a deliberate change in its genome.

When it is attacked by a virus and the viral attack fails, it takes a little bit of that viral DNA and puts it into its own genome. In other words, it changes its genome. That's not an accidental mutation. That's a deliberate change in its genome.

to incorporate some of the viral DNA as part of its immune system because once that DNA has a bit of viral elements in it, next time that virus comes around, it recognizes it and then it can protect itself by cutting the viral DNA in two and then it's harmless.

to incorporate some of the viral DNA as part of its immune system because once that DNA has a bit of viral elements in it, next time that virus comes around, it recognizes it and then it can protect itself by cutting the viral DNA in two and then it's harmless.

The very opposite of what biology has been telling us for almost 100 years, well, since DNA, that DNA mutation is random and natural selection is how evolution comes about. Not true.

The very opposite of what biology has been telling us for almost 100 years, well, since DNA, that DNA mutation is random and natural selection is how evolution comes about. Not true.

Already the beginnings of that understanding were uncovered by Barbara McClintock in the 1940s, and people just thought she was talking nonsense when she noticed jumping genes, that genetic material was changing position in corn.

Already the beginnings of that understanding were uncovered by Barbara McClintock in the 1940s, and people just thought she was talking nonsense when she noticed jumping genes, that genetic material was changing position in corn.

With a microscope, she saw this, and she was just ridiculed until people saw some decades later that this was true, and she got, in 1980, what, three or something, a Nobel Prize for that work. Another biologist who makes this point very clearly is Jim Shapiro in Chicago, who says DNA is thought of as a read-only thing. He says it's a read-write system.

With a microscope, she saw this, and she was just ridiculed until people saw some decades later that this was true, and she got, in 1980, what, three or something, a Nobel Prize for that work. Another biologist who makes this point very clearly is Jim Shapiro in Chicago, who says DNA is thought of as a read-only thing. He says it's a read-write system.

In other words, this is starting to come around to what I was saying, what Dennis Noble is saying, and biologists still have to take this in, that the cell

In other words, this is starting to come around to what I was saying, what Dennis Noble is saying, and biologists still have to take this in, that the cell

basically controls the genome just as much the genome is an important location for memory for information for the cell but it's clear that it's not the be all and end all because it's an extraordinary thing that when that one fertilized egg became trillions of cells a human body

basically controls the genome just as much the genome is an important location for memory for information for the cell but it's clear that it's not the be all and end all because it's an extraordinary thing that when that one fertilized egg became trillions of cells a human body

There are kidney cells and liver cells and brain cells and skin cells, and they're all different, but they all have the same genome. So basically, the cell uses the bits of genome that are relevant for the cell at any particular moment. So it's, as I say, it's not the genome. running the roost, it's the cell itself and that brings me back. So where did this all start?

There are kidney cells and liver cells and brain cells and skin cells, and they're all different, but they all have the same genome. So basically, the cell uses the bits of genome that are relevant for the cell at any particular moment. So it's, as I say, it's not the genome. running the roost, it's the cell itself and that brings me back. So where did this all start?