Word: celling
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Until now, that is. Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor of Pathology James S. Michaelson has written in a soon-to-be-published paper that Darwinian processes "provide the dominant force in development" and that "cell death is more a cause, than a result, of developmental organization...
Scientists have long wondered how a two-celled zygote develops into a complex organism such as a human. Michaelson's new findings seem to suggest that Darwinian processes of cell selection provide a basis for development. In other words, those cells best fit to survive embryonic development and life as an organism are chosen...
...significant disruption to the body's immune response -- caused, for instance, by severe burns, chemotherapy or major abdominal surgery -- allows these rod-shaped bacteria to multiply out of control and invade other parts of the body, eventually entering the bloodstream. Once there, one part of the bacterial cell wall called endotoxin can trigger a cascade of lethal effects, culminating in multiple organ failure and death, sometimes within hours...
Folkman likens this tumor expansion process to the construction of an apartment complex on the spot where a lone house once stood. The plumbing and electricity--meaning the cell's blood--must be improved dramatically, since the apartment's residents cannot survive on the much fewer resources of the old house...
Scientists aren't sure why cell shape should so adversely affect cell growth. Nonetheless, the discovery was important, since a drug which represses cell growth is precisely what you want to stem a tumor's growth...