The Invisible Organ Shaping Our Lives: Milestones in Human ...
Researchers from ChristianaCare’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute and the University of Delaware believe they have figured out why it is that as our dead cells are replaced by new ones, the new ones retain the same organ shapes we had before. Their study in the journal Biology of the Cell shows there are five basic rules that keep the new cells forming the same organ shapes.
Bruce Boman, M.D., Ph.D., senior research scientist at ChristianaCare’s Cawley Center for Translational Cancer Research, said, “This may be the biological version of a blueprint. Just like we have a genetic code that explains how our genes work, we may also have a ’tissue code’ that explains how our bodies stay so precisely organized over time.”
New study cracks the “tissue code” — just five rules shape organs– www.sciencedaily.com
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Excerpt:
Every day, your body replaces billions of cells — and yet, your tissues stay perfectly organized. How is that possible?
A team of researchers at ChristianaCare’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute and the University of Delaware believe they’ve found an answer. In a new study published in the scientific journal Biology of the Cell, they show that just five basic rules may explain how the body maintains the complex structure of tissues like those in the colon, for example, even as its cells are constantly dying and being replaced.
This research is the product of more than 15 years of collaboration between mathematicians and cancer biologists to unlock the rules that govern tissue structure and cellular behavior.
“This may be the biological version of a blueprint,” said Bruce Boman, M.D., Ph.D., senior research scientist at ChristianaCare’s Cawley Center for Translational Cancer Research and faculty member in the departments of Biological Sciences and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Delaware. “Just like we have a genetic code that explains how our genes work, we may also have a ’tissue code’ that explains how our bodies stay so precisely organized over time.”
