Word: livered
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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What are we, chopped liver...
Extending this hypothesis, Michaelson began experiments on the liver cells of laboratory rats. Using flourescence microscopy, in which a chemical compound is "tagged" by a flourescent molecule, he showed that different liver cells, or hepatocytes, produced different proteins...
This flew in the face of popular scientific belief, which held that all hepatocytes were similar, and therefore proved that there is in fact genetic variation among liver cells...
Based on these findings, Michaelson concluded that "changes in the overall synthesis of each plasma protein are mediated by selective growth and death among these specialized cells in the liver. In short, plasma protein synthesis fits our description of the Darwinian process, organized by cellular selection among a diverse collection of specialized cells...
Michaelson said that this idea of natural selection in the liver suggests the same process in the embryonic development of all organs...