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Consider a field like cancer where gene sequencing has come to play a dominant role…The problem is that if you sequence a typical cell from, say, a lung cancer patient, you will find literally hundreds of genes which are mutated…It is even more difficult to know which genes to target if we want to keep the cancer from growing. For doing this it is important to have a better theory for understanding exactly what genes would be mutated in a cancer cell and why….
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The failure of reductionist technology to understand emergent biology is why technology will not save the biological sciences…[W]hat we need most is an integrated view of biological organisms that moves away from a strict focus on looking at these organisms as collections of particles, fields and molecules.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Why Technology Won’t Save Biology
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