BSC-2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Blood Sugar, Reductionism, Systems Biology
2 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Life is recognized by what living things do. We start o with a single cell & then the cell multiplies and eventually specializes. Concept 1. 1 the study of life reveals common themes. Theme: new properties emerge at successive levels of biological organization. Result from the arrangement and interaction of parts within a system. Example: a function bicycle emerges only when all of the necessary parts are put together. The reduction of complex systems to simpler components that are more manageable to study. Biologists complement reductionism with systems biology, analysis of the interactions among the parts of a biological system. At each level of bio hierarchy we nd correlation between structure and function. The cell: an organism"s basic unit of structure and function. The cell is the lowest level of organization that can perform all activities required for life. Enclosed in a membrane that regulates passage of material between the cell and its environment.
