Philosophy of Human Biochemistry By Katherine Lightwood

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Philosophy of Human Biochemistry

By Katherine Lightwood 


Like always, I was sitting in my drawing room staring at the blank white wall and was thinking where's my life is taking me, if I am doing anything wrong that I shouldn't do or miss something. I started reviewing my life, what I did in my past, how I took decisions and my checkpoints that turned my life over. I was given a life that I am utilizing and god knows in what way. And at the same time, my body has cells which also is given time to complete its task. And the grim thing is after a while, we all will perish from the face of the earth, my cells and me.   

Every day in the adult human body, 50 to 70 billion cells of your body die. Either they are stressed or damaged or just gets old. And this is totally normal and is called 'programmed cell death'. But to make up for all these lost cells, right now millions of your cells are dividing, essentially creating new cells. and this process of cell division is called 'mitosis'. But, guess what, this process is so complex that it requires an army of molecular machines.

And to look at this closely, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a very good place to start. Now, let me tell you about DNA in a basic layman's language, although it can be quite complex but bear with me. It is a double helix ribonucleic acid chain which exists inside our cellular nucleus and contains our every genetic code. The two strands of DNA are highly supercoiled and if you unwind those two strands, you can see that each has a sugar-phosphate backbone connected to the sequence of the nucleic acid base pairs known by the pairs A, T, G, and C.

The interesting thing is, those stands run in opposite directions of each other which is important when you copy a DNA. Copying DNA is one of the first steps in DNA's cell division and it is called DNA Replication. At the end of the process, you have two identical DNA molecules, each one is few centimeters long and couple nanometers wide. So, to prevent the DNA to become a tangled mass, it is wrapped around proteins called 'histones' forming a nucleosome. These nucleosomes are bundled together into a fiber known as chromatin, which is further looped and coiled to form a chromosome, one of the largest molecular structures in your body. You can actually see chromosomes under a microscope of dividing cells if you have a microscope of course. The process of dividing cells takes around an hour in mammals. during cell division, chromosomes are pulled apart into the two new daughter cells, each one containing an identical copy of DNA.

Now, this process might look very simple to you, but no my friend, it is in fact so complicated that after you try to learn it you head will hurt very bad. Ok, now let me tell you how exactly it works from my understanding. Now, if you look at a single chromosome, it consists of two sausage-shaped chromatids containing those identical copies of DNA. Each chromatid is attached to microtubular fibers, which guide them and help and align them in the correct position. The microtubules are connected to the chromatid at the kinetochore. Kinetochore consists of hundreds of different proteins working together to achieve multiple objectives. In fact, it's one of the sophisticated molecular mechanisms inside our body.

Personally, I am astounded by the tiny molecular machines. How they routinely and faithfully execute their functions billions of times over inside your body at the exact instant. I am also amazed by the scientists who were able to work out how this happens in such details that we could create realistic depictions of them. But perhaps the most amazing thing is just how much is left to be discovered like figuring out how exactly the chromatids are pulled to opposite ends of the cells? And there's so much that we don't quite know.

 So, that was my thought of the day. To see more posts like this make sure to visit our main page. And do not forget to visit our institute's page to know more about graphic design, 3D, animation courses and other awesome stuff. Till then good day to you.

Katherine Lightwood         

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