PROFUNDITY LOST -MISSING THE ‘WHOLE’

According to a recent study, over 50 million scientific articles have been published from 1665 to 2009. Every year over 2.5 million scientific articles are being published in recent times. At this rate, we should have uncovered all the mysteries of the human body and the natural environment where we survive. Yet, we are unaware of much of what goes inside or around us. Is it not the right time to ponder over our shortcomings in the scientific world!

I shall focus on some aspects of biological science to illustrate my point. The brilliance of technological advances has gifted us with the ability to tease out the nitty gritty of a human cell to its minutest detail. We can analyse over 15 different signatures inside a single cell by the process of Flow Cytometry. This is now being superseded by Mass Cytometry where we can look at 50 such signatures at one go. The Human Genome Project, the most ambitious scientific endeavour to understand each human gene and its origin. The job of a gene is to finally produce a protein which is needed for bodily function. The same gene which is active in the liver might be silent in the brain, as the brain does not need the same protein as the liver. This is achieved through a biochemical process of methylation and acetylation. It all sounds good until now. But that is where the plot thickens.

There are numerous enzymes doing the same job on different genes in different organs at different times in a perfectly tuned manner to switch on and switch off the functions of different genes. Imagine that some 20,000 genes and some 100 enzymes in constant interplay to keep us going! For those who have witnessed orchestra being played in a giant hall with pianists, violinists, guitarists, celloists and more the merrier- playing in harmony to create a melody with full cognizance of time, rhythm and elegance. Fully aware of individual roles- they know when to start and when to stop, after months and years of training. A single player from the celloists, missing a cue and overlapping on the violinists would disrupt the creation of melody and the harmony would be lost.

The same is happening in the human body every second. It’s the nature’s orchestra. Any disruption in this process ends in disease or dysfunction. Science has been trying to grasp this profundity of nature without showing her the due respect and without admittance of our limitations. Each of us are focussing on one organ and even one cell and diligently trying to figure its mysticism in health and disease. Each enzyme, each protein and each gene would be discovered, reinvented or celebrated and constitute the 2.5 million plus publications. But where is the master-conductor!

Who is sitting down amalgamating the fragments of information and try to give it shape? The scientists have groups- some deal with helper T cells, some with cytotoxic T cells and some with regulatory T cells. They are studying the genetic changes, metabolic changes and doing mass cytometry to get data on as many events going on inside each of these cells. We have several verticals in management terms, working on each cell or even each gene, mostly unaware of what is going on with the others. If you go to an expert on regulatory T cells and ask about some recent discovery on cytotoxic T cells, you will be politely directed to some scientist of the respective lab. This is an act of honesty. Each one is full to the brim with their own work of one cell type, one enzyme, one gene or one organ.

Unfortunately, the human body works on finely tuned interaction between each gene, protein, enzyme and cell. In a focused world where the demand is to scale up the number of publications to climb up the ladder in both academic and business worlds, we do not have the time, will or bandwidth to reflect on our work in the perspective of the ‘whole’.  This is exemplified when someone tries to review the fragments of these findings on a larger scale of an organ or disease. Unfortunately, most infer, in their trueness to science, that there is very little linking the bits.

In the intensity to focus on my house, I have forgotten my locality. In order to further my locality, I have lost the view of my city and thus the country, its people and the world at large. Its time to take a break and reflect- reflect on the profundity with which mother nature has designed each one of us and our surrounding, while we slide down the slippery slope of genetic engineering, the most recent kid on the block.

We had discovered how to combine chemicals to produce plastics. For ease of living. Fifty years down the line, we are realising that we have coated the earth with plastics and can breathe no longer. In the craze of genetic engineering, we are ready to go down the path of unforeseen self-destruction and devastation- irrevocable and irretrievable.

Time-out please. Bow in front of profundity of the nature. Understand and discover the bits as a part of the whole. Be a part-but don’t miss the ‘WHOLE’.