Why Your DNA is Not Your Destiny

In 1953 Watson and Crick changed the course of human history when their article “Molecular Structure of Nucleic acid” was published in Nature .Which they termed as the “central dogma”. The central dogma become one of the, most important tenets of modern science, one that significantly influenced the direction of genetic research for the next 50 years. The belief in a physical Newtonian world fully convinced biologists that life and its mechanism are clearly the result of material interaction , akin to  the old story of moving , interlocking gears within wind up mechanical watches(Lipton B. and Bhaerman S., 2009).

Scientist unquestionably accepted the central dogma’s conclusions as true because they were already anticipating the result. Amazingly biologist immediately accepted Crick’s hypothesis even though its validity was never assessed. And it is both interesting and important to note that Crick referred to his DNA-RNA-protein molecular pathway hypothesis as dogma. By definition, the word dogma represents “a belief based upon religious persuasion and not scientific fact”.

By adopting unverified dogma and making it the very foundation of biomedicine, scientific materialism officially and ironically slipped onto the realm of religion! The question as to whether or not modern science represents s science or religion was now predicted on whether DNA actually controls life. 

However as, by the 1980s, genetic scientists were convinced that genes controlled life. They thus set out to map the human genome, intending to identify the complete set of genes that define all of the heritable traits of the human organism. They hoped that, by revealing that code, they would find the key to finally preventing and curing human illness (Lipton B. and Bhaerman S., 2009).

The Human Genome Project initially was focused on cataloging all the genes of the human body. At the beginning of the 1990s, the original researchers expected to find at least 100,000 genes, with at least 20,000 regulatory gene,because that’s the minimum they projected it would take to code all the characteristics of an organism as complex as a human being. Our bodies manufacture about 10,000 proteins, the building blocks of cells. All of those 100,000 building blocks must be assembled with precise coordination in order to support life. The working hypothesis at the start of the Human Genome Project was that there would be a gene that provided the blueprint to manufacture each of those 100,000 proteins, plus another 20,000 or so regulatory genes whose function was to orchestrate the complex dance of protein assembly.

The further the project progressed, the smaller the estimates of the number of genes became. When the project finished its catalog, they had mapped the human genome as consisting of just 23,688 genes. The huge symphony orchestra of genes they had expected to find had shrunk to the size of a string quartet (Charch D., 2008).

This arises several problems with the dogma, like, is that the number of genes in the human chromosome is insufficient to carry all the information required to create and run a human body. It isn’t even a big enough number to code for the structure (let alone function) of one complex organ like the brain. It also is too small a number to account for the huge quantity of neural connections in our bodies (Ho, Mae-Wan, 2004). And if all the information required constructing and maintaining a human being— or even one big instrument, such as the brain—is not contained in the genes, where does it come from? And who is conducting the whole complex dance of assembly of multiple organ systems?

Scientists began to uncover a revolutionary new view of how life really works and, in doing so, founded a new branch of science known as epigenetics. Epigenetics has shaken the foundations of biology and medicine to their core because it reveals that we are not victims but masters of our genes. The focus of research has thus shifted from cataloging the genes themselves to figuring out how they work in the context of an organism that is in “a state of systemic cooperation [where] every part knows what every other part is doing; every atom, molecule, cell, and tissue is able to participate in an intended action”(McCallum, Ian, 2005). The lack of enough information in the genes to construct and manage a body is just one of the weaknesses of the Central Dogma. Another is that genes can be activated and deactivated by the environment inside the body and outside of it. Scientists are learning more about the process that turns genes on and off, and what factors influence their activation. Researchers estimate that “approximately 90% of all genes are engaged…in cooperation with signals from the environment” (Cousins, Norman 1989).

In the journal Science, researcher Elizabeth Pennisi writes, “Gene expression is not determined solely by the DNA code itself but by an assortment of proteins and, sometimes, RNAs that tell the genes when and where to turn on or off. Such epigenetic phenomena orchestrate the many changes through which a single fertilized egg cell turns into a complex organism. And throughout life, they enable cells to respond to environmental signals conveyed by hormones, growth factors, and other regulatory molecules without having to alter the DNA itself”(Cahill et al. 1994).This whole chain of events of Gene expression starts with a signal. The signal is delivered through the cell membrane to the protein sleeve, which then unwraps in order to let the information in the gene move from potential to expression. Notice that these signals do not come from the DNA; they come from outside the cell. The signals tell the proteins surrounding the DNA strands to unwrap and conclude rest of the part. But while scientists have mapped each part of the process of gene expression and protein assembly, comparatively little attention has been paid to the signals, the source of initiation for the whole process.

Epigenetics traces the signals that tell the genes what to do and when to do it. Epigenetics studies the environment, such as the signals that initiate stem cell differentiation and wound healing. The pathway by which epigenetic signals affect the expression of genes has many steps. Nutrition, stress, emotions  are some of the factors that can modify the expression of genes without changing their basic blueprints, that is DNA. Which can also pass through generation depending upon the environmental influence. The understanding that much of our genetic activity is affected by factors outside the cell is a radical reversal of the dogma of genetic determinism, which held for half a century that who we are and what we do is governed by our genes. 

Exciting new insights concerning what that something above the gene is, provides a gateway of understanding our proper role as co-creators of our reality. As environmental signals acting through membrane switches control cell functions. It turns out that environmental signals, using the same mechanisms, also regulate gene activity. In the case of epigenetics, environmentally derived signals activate membrane switches that send secondary signals into the cell's nucleus. Within the nucleus, these signals select gene blueprints and control the manufacture of specific proteins. This is far different than the conventional belief that genes turn themselves on and off. Genes are not emergent entities, meaning they do not control their own activity. Genes are simply molecular blueprints. And blueprints are design drawings; they are not the contractors that actually construct the building. Epigenetics functionally represents the mechanism by which the contractor selects appropriate gene blueprints and controls the construction and maintenance of the body. Genes do not control biology; they are used by biology.

Epigenetic mechanisms actually modify the readout of the genetic code. The creative power of epigenetics is revealed in this fact: epigenetic mechanisms can edit the readout of a gene so as to create over 30,000 different variations of proteins from the same gene blueprint. Depending on the nature of the environmental signals, the contractor characteristic of the epigenetic mechanism can modify a gene to produce either healthy or dysfunctional protein products. In other words, a person can be born with healthy genes but, through a distortion in epigenetic signaling, can develop a mutant condition such as cancer. On the positive side, the same epigenetic mechanism can enable individuals born with potentially debilitating mutations to create normal, healthy proteins and functions from their inherited defective genes (Lipton B. and Bhaerman S., 2009).