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AKB: Biologische Physik

AKB 20: Systems Biology and Bioinformatics

AKB 20.1: Invited Talk

Friday, March 4, 2005, 14:00–14:30, TU H2013

Conflict and Cooperation in Biological Systems — •Peter Hammerstein — Humboldt Universitaet

In biology, the components of a living organism are often compared with parts of a well designed machine, assuming that the evolutionary process acts somewhat like a human engineer. This picture has been used many times as a powerful heuristic tool but it can be misleading. The wheels of a machine have no "incentive" to act improperly, but parts of an organism can be under selection to actively undermine the performance of that organism. Mitochondria, usually regarded as the cell’s "power plant", are subject to selective forces under which they would in principle benefit by suppressing male function. The same is true for intracellular symbiotic bacteria found in many insect species. These bacteria kill males or turn them into females or effectively sterilize them. Medicine needs to recognize that there are enemies within.