Complexities in Biology: Predictions in Medicine

The enthusiasm about progress in molecular biology and medicine with improved diagnostic and therapeutic strategies has gradually given way to a more realistic appreciation. We now realize that we underestimate the enormous complexities in biology. Most diseases cannot be understood solely by the analyses of genes which make up only a bare 2% of the total human DNA sequence. Today, we concentrate on studying regulatory mechanisms, and are just scratching the surface in evaluating the actual coding capacities of the still mysterious molecule DNA that encodes much more than the 25,000 human genes. It would be precarious to make risky predictions or raise never-to-be-fulfilled hopes for sick people on the short-term potential of molecular medicine. A decisive caveat will be in order before we can apply present-day genetic concepts to problems in medicine with its own tantalizing complexities. Without an enhanced emphasis on basic research all promises emanating from translational research - bench to bedside – will not materialize. With more basic research we should set your priorities right. Provocatively, DNA can be considered a macro-molecule in search of new functions. I propose that there are hidden coding capacities in DNA that we have not deciphered yet and will miss as long as we refrain from looking for more far-reaching concepts - a challenge for future generations of geneticists. In this context, it will be interesting to recall that the physicists of the 1930s and 40s were initially attracted to the study of biology because they surmised biology to hold the cue to a new type of elementary force. In a discussion in the late 1970s, Max Delbrück (1906-1981) recalled that the physicists at the time were disappointed to detect “good old” physics and chemistry to be at work in biology. Perhaps, the physicists with their speculations of those yonder years were on to something, and we might be well advised to heed their ideas of a new elementary force.