Results for 'protein biology'

961 found
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  1. The Protein Ontology: A structured representation of protein forms and complexes.Darren Natale, Cecilia N. Arighi, Winona C. Barker, Judith A. Blake, Carol J. Bult, Michael Caudy, Harold J. Drabkin, Peter D’Eustachio, Alexei V. Evsikov, Hongzhan Huang, Jules Nchoutmboube, Natalia V. Roberts, Barry Smith, Jian Zhang & Cathy H. Wu - 2011 - Nucleic Acids Research 39 (1):D539-D545.
    The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides a formal, logically-based classification of specific protein classes including structured representations of protein isoforms, variants and modified forms. Initially focused on proteins found in human, mouse and Escherichia coli, PRO now includes representations of protein complexes. The PRO Consortium works in concert with the developers of other biomedical ontologies and protein knowledge bases to provide the ability to formally organize and integrate representations of precise protein forms so as to (...)
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  2. Protein Ontology: A controlled structured network of protein entities.A. Natale Darren, N. Arighi Cecilia, A. Blake Judith, J. Bult Carol, R. Christie Karen, Cowart Julie, D’Eustachio Peter, D. Diehl Alexander, J. Drabkin Harold, Helfer Olivia, Barry Smith & Others - 2013 - Nucleic Acids Research 42 (1):D415-21..
    The Protein Ontology (PRO; http://proconsortium.org) formally defines protein entities and explicitly represents their major forms and interrelations. Protein entities represented in PRO corresponding to single amino acid chains are categorized by level of specificity into family, gene, sequence and modification metaclasses, and there is a separate metaclass for protein complexes. All metaclasses also have organism-specific derivatives. PRO complements established sequence databases such as UniProtKB, and interoperates with other biomedical and biological ontologies such as the Gene Ontology (...)
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  3. Where Do You Get Your Protein? Or: Biochemical Realization.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2020 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (3):799-825.
    Biochemical kinds such as proteins pose interesting problems for philosophers of science, as they can be studied from the points of view of both biology and chemistry. The relationship between the biological functions of biochemical kinds and the microstructures that they are related to is the key question. This leads us to a more general discussion about ontological reductionism, microstructuralism, and multiple realization at the biology-chemistry interface. On the face of it, biochemical kinds seem to pose a challenge (...)
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  4. The representation of protein complexes in the Protein Ontology.Carol Bult, Harold Drabkin, Alexei Evsikov, Darren Natale, Cecilia Arighi, Natalia Roberts, Alan Ruttenberg, Peter D’Eustachio, Barry Smith, Judith Blake & Cathy Wu - 2011 - BMC Bioinformatics 12 (371):1-11.
    Representing species-specific proteins and protein complexes in ontologies that are both human and machine-readable facilitates the retrieval, analysis, and interpretation of genome-scale data sets. Although existing protin-centric informatics resources provide the biomedical research community with well-curated compendia of protein sequence and structure, these resources lack formal ontological representations of the relationships among the proteins themselves. The Protein Ontology (PRO) Consortium is filling this informatics resource gap by developing ontological representations and relationships among proteins and their variants and (...)
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  5. Quantum transport and utilization of free energy in protein α-helices.Danko D. Georgiev & James F. Glazebrook - 2020 - Advances in Quantum Chemistry 82:253-300.
    The essential biological processes that sustain life are catalyzed by protein nano-engines, which maintain living systems in far-from-equilibrium ordered states. To investigate energetic processes in proteins, we have analyzed the system of generalized Davydov equations that govern the quantum dynamics of multiple amide I exciton quanta propagating along the hydrogen-bonded peptide groups in α-helices. Computational simulations have confirmed the generation of moving Davydov solitons by applied pulses of amide I energy for protein α-helices of varying length. The stability (...)
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  6. Launching of Davydov solitons in protein α-helix spines.Danko D. Georgiev & James F. Glazebrook - 2020 - Physica E: Low-Dimensional Systems and Nanostructures 124:114332.
    Biological order provided by α-helical secondary protein structures is an important resource exploitable by living organisms for increasing the efficiency of energy transport. In particular, self-trapping of amide I energy quanta by the induced phonon deformation of the hydrogen-bonded lattice of peptide groups is capable of generating either pinned or moving solitary waves following the Davydov quasiparticle/soliton model. The effect of applied in-phase Gaussian pulses of amide I energy, however, was found to be strongly dependent on the site of (...)
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  7. Thermal stability of solitons in protein α-helices.Danko D. Georgiev & James F. Glazebrook - 2022 - Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 155:111644.
    Protein α-helices provide an ordered biological environment that is conducive to soliton-assisted energy transport. The nonlinear interaction between amide I excitons and phonon deformations induced in the hydrogen-bonded lattice of peptide groups leads to self-trapping of the amide I energy, thereby creating a localized quasiparticle (soliton) that persists at zero temperature. The presence of thermal noise, however, could destabilize the protein soliton and dissipate its energy within a finite lifetime. In this work, we have computationally solved the system (...)
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  8. Understanding Biology in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.Adham El Shazly, Elsa Lawerence, Srijit Seal, Chaitanya Joshi, Matthew Greening, Pietro Lio, Shantung Singh, Andreas Bender & Pietro Sormanni - manuscript
    Modern life sciences research is increasingly relying on artificial intelligence (AI) approaches to model biological systems, primarily centered around the use of machine learning (ML) models. Although ML is undeniably useful for identifying patterns in large, complex data sets, its widespread application in biological sciences represents a significant deviation from traditional methods of scientific inquiry. As such, the interplay between these models and scientific understanding in biology is a topic with important implications for the future of scientific research, yet (...)
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  9. Integrative pluralism for biological function.Beckett Sterner & Samuel Cusimano - 2019 - Biology and Philosophy 34 (6):1-21.
    We introduce a new type of pluralism about biological function that, in contrast to existing, demonstrates a practical integration among the term’s different meanings. In particular, we show how to generalize Sandra Mitchell’s notion of integrative pluralism to circumstances where multiple epistemic tools of the same type are jointly necessary to solve scientific problems. We argue that the multiple definitions of biological function operate jointly in this way based on how biologists explain the evolution of protein function. To clarify (...)
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  10. Two Dogmas of Biology.Leonore Fleming - 2017 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 9 (2).
    The problem with reductionism in biology is not the reduction, but the implicit attitude of determinism that usually accompanies it. Methodological reductionism is supported by deterministic beliefs, but making such a connection is problematic when it is based on an idea of determinism as fixed predictability. Conflating determinism with predictability gives rise to inaccurate models that overlook the dynamic complexity of our world, as well as ignore our epistemic limitations when we try to model it. Furthermore, the assumption of (...)
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  11. A framework for philosophical biology.Sepehr Ehsani - manuscript
    Advances in biology, at least over the past two centuries, have mostly relied on theories that were subsequently revised, expanded or eventually refuted using experimental and other means. The field of theoretical biology used to primarily provide a basis, similar to theoretical physics in the physical sciences, to rationally examine the frameworks within which biological experiments were carried out and to shed light on overlooked gaps in understanding. Today, however, theoretical biology has generally become synonymous with computational (...)
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  12. The Biological Framework for a Mathematical Universe.Ronald Williams - unknown - Dissertation, Temple University
    The mathematical universe hypothesis is a theory that the physical universe is not merely described by mathematics, but is mathematics, specifically a mathematical structure. Our research provides evidence that the mathematical structure of the universe is biological in nature and all systems, processes, and objects within the universe function in harmony with biological patterns. Living organisms are the result of the universe’s biological pattern and are embedded within their physiology the patterns of this biological universe. Therefore physiological patterns in living (...)
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  13. The Evolution of Consciousness & Subjectivity in a Biological Framework for The Universe.Ronald Williams - manuscript
    This paper explores the evolution of consciousness and subjectivity through a biological framework for understanding the universe. It posits that functional patterns in biological systems mirror cosmic mathematical principles, defining our objective reality. Similar to wave and Fibonacci patterns in different physical phenomena, biological patterns are intrinsic to all things and can be quantified using Dedre Gentner’s approach to analogy. For example, Earth’s ocean currents and the melting and freezing of Antarctica resemble the circulatory system and heart, while the production (...)
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  14. Causal Specificity, Biological Possibility and Non-parity about Genetic Causes.Marcel Weber - manuscript
    Several authors have used the notion of causal specificity in order to defend non-parity about genetic causes (Waters 2007, Woodward 2010, Weber 2017, forthcoming). Non-parity in this context is the idea that DNA and some other biomolecules that are often described as information-bearers by biologists play a unique role in life processes, an idea that has been challenged by Developmental Systems Theory (e.g., Oyama 2000). Indeed, it has proven to be quite difficult to state clearly what the alleged special role (...)
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  15. Object spaces: An organizing strategy for biological theorizing.Beckett Sterner - 2009 - Biological Theory 4 (3):280-286.
    A classic analytic approach to biological phenomena seeks to refine definitions until classes are sufficiently homogenous to support prediction and explanation, but this approach founders on cases where a single process produces objects with similar forms but heterogeneous behaviors. I introduce object spaces as a tool to tackle this challenging diversity of biological objects in terms of causal processes with well-defined formal properties. Object spaces have three primary components: (1) a combinatorial biological process such as protein synthesis that generates (...)
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  16. On the Limits of Causal Modeling: Spatially-Structurally Complex Biological Phenomena.Marie I. Kaiser - 2016 - Philosophy of Science 83 (5):921-933.
    This paper examines the adequacy of causal graph theory as a tool for modeling biological phenomena and formalizing biological explanations. I point out that the causal graph approach reaches it limits when it comes to modeling biological phenomena that involve complex spatial and structural relations. Using a case study from molecular biology, DNA-binding and -recognition of proteins, I argue that causal graph models fail to adequately represent and explain causal phenomena in this field. The inadequacy of these models is (...)
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  17. Antifragility and Tinkering in Biology (and in Business) Flexibility Provides an Efficient Epigenetic Way to Manage Risk.Antoine Danchin, Philippe M. Binder & Stanislas Noria - 2011 - Genes 2 (4):998-1016.
    The notion of antifragility, an attribute of systems that makes them thrive under variable conditions, has recently been proposed by Nassim Taleb in a business context. This idea requires the ability of such systems to ‘tinker’, i.e., to creatively respond to changes in their environment. A fairly obvious example of this is natural selection-driven evolution. In this ubiquitous process, an original entity, challenged by an ever-changing environment, creates variants that evolve into novel entities. Analyzing functions that are essential during stationary-state (...)
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  18. Analytic philosophy for biomedical research: the imperative of applying yesterday's timeless messages to today's impasses.Sepehr Ehsani - 2020 - In Patrick Glauner & Philipp Plugmann (eds.), Innovative Technologies for Market Leadership: Investing in the Future. Springer. pp. 167-200.
    The mantra that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" (attributed to the computer scientist Alan Kay) exemplifies some of the expectations from the technical and innovative sides of biomedical research at present. However, for technical advancements to make real impacts both on patient health and genuine scientific understanding, quite a number of lingering challenges facing the entire spectrum from protein biology all the way to randomized controlled trials should start to be overcome. The (...)
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  19. SynBio 2.0, a new era for synthetic life: Neglected essential functions for resilience.Antoine Danchin & Jian Dong Huang - 2022 - Environmental Microbiology 25 (1):64-78.
    Synthetic biology (SynBio) covers two main areas: application engineering, exemplified by metabolic engi- neering, and the design of life from artificial building blocks. As the general public is often reluctant to embrace synthetic approaches, preferring nature to artifice, its immediate future will depend very much on the public’s reaction to the unmet needs created by the pervasive demands of sustainability. On the other hand, this reluctance should not have a negative impact on research that will now take into account (...)
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  20. Is the Cell Really a Machine?Daniel J. Nicholson - 2019 - Journal of Theoretical Biology 477:108–126.
    It has become customary to conceptualize the living cell as an intricate piece of machinery, different to a man-made machine only in terms of its superior complexity. This familiar understanding grounds the conviction that a cell's organization can be explained reductionistically, as well as the idea that its molecular pathways can be construed as deterministic circuits. The machine conception of the cell owes a great deal of its success to the methods traditionally used in molecular biology. However, the recent (...)
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  21. Biochemical Kinds.Jordan Bartol - 2014 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (2):axu046.
    Chemical kinds (e.g. gold) are generally treated as having timelessly fixed identities. Biological kinds (e.g. goldfinches) are generally treated as evolved and/or evolving entities. So what kind of kind is a biochemical kind? This paper defends the thesis that biochemical molecules are clustered chemical kinds, some of which–namely, evolutionarily conserved units–are also biological kinds.On this thesis, a number of difficulties that have recently occupied philosophers concerned with proteins and kinds are shown to be resolved or dissolved.
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  22. The Origin of Cellular Life and Biosemiotics.Attila Grandpierre - 2013 - Biosemiotics (3):1-15.
    Recent successes of systems biology clarified that biological functionality is multilevel. We point out that this fact makes it necessary to revise popular views about macromolecular functions and distinguish between local, physico-chemical and global, biological functions. Our analysis shows that physico-chemical functions are merely tools of biological functionality. This result sheds new light on the origin of cellular life, indicating that in evolutionary history, assignment of biological functions to cellular ingredients plays a crucial role. In this wider picture, even (...)
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  23. Biometaphysics.Barry Smith - 2009 - In Robin Le Poidevin, Simons Peter, McGonigal Andrew & Ross P. Cameron (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics. New York: Routledge. pp. 537-544.
    While Darwin is commonly supposed to have demonstrated the inapplicability of the Aristotelian ontology of species to biological science, recent developments, especially in the wake of the Human Genome Project, have given rise to a new golden age of classification in which ontological ideas -- as for example in the Gene Ontology, the Cell Ontology, the Protein Ontology, and so forth -- are once again playing an important role. In regard to species, on the other hand, matters are more (...)
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  24. Crick's Adaptor Hypothesis and the Discovery of Transfer RNA: Experiment Surpassing Theoretical Prediction.Michael Fry - 2022 - Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 14 (11):1-31.
    Historically, hypotheses failed in most cases to correctly forecast the workings of complex biological systems. Francis Crick’s adaptor hypothesis, however, stands out as an exceptional case of a confirmed abstract prediction. This hypothesis presciently anticipated the existence of RNA adaptors that function as bridges between amino acids and the chemically different nucleic acid template for proteins. Crick conjectured that the adaptors are enzymatically charged with cognate amino acids, they bind to complementary protein-coding nucleic acid, and their liberated amino acids (...)
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  25. The Plant Ontology as a Tool for Comparative Plant Anatomy and Genomic Analyses.Laurel Cooper, Ramona Walls, Justin Elser, Maria A. Gandolfo, Dennis W. Stevenson, Barry Smith & Others - 2013 - Plant and Cell Physiology 54 (2):1-23..
    The Plant Ontology (PO; http://www.plantontology.org/) is a publicly-available, collaborative effort to develop and maintain a controlled, structured vocabulary (“ontology”) of terms to describe plant anatomy, morphology and the stages of plant development. The goals of the PO are to link (annotate) gene expression and phenotype data to plant structures and stages of plant development, using the data model adopted by the Gene Ontology. From its original design covering only rice, maize and Arabidopsis, the scope of the PO has been expanded (...)
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  26. die physik, das leben und die seele.Alfred Gierer - 1985 - Muenchen, Germany: piper.
    This book (in German) on "Physics, life and mind" is on the physical foundations of modern biology. The basic features of living systems, reproduction, mutation and metabolism, can be explained in terms of molecular processes involving nucleic acids as genetic material, and proteins as catalysts. The generation of structure and form in each generation results from spatiotemporal gene regulation in conjunction with the de novo formation of spatial order in which interplays of activation and inhibition play a crucial part. (...)
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  27. Cytoskeleton and Consciousness: An Evolutionary Based Review.Contzen Pereira - 2015 - Neuroquantology 13 (2).
    The fields of quantum biology and physics are now starting to unite to solve the mysteries associated with the field of evolutionary biology. One such question is the origination and propagation of consciousness which has always been ambiguous and in order to understand this concept, many theories have been proposed by several philosophers and scientists. This review paper agrees with the idea, that evolution is not a random process but hypothesizes, that its succession was managed by the expanding (...)
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  28. The Origin of Consciousness.Ronald Williams - forthcoming - Biologicaluniverse.Org.
    This paper explores the evolution of consciousness and subjectivity through a biological framework for understanding the universe. It posits that functional patterns in biological systems mirror cosmic mathematical principles, defining our objective reality. Similar to wave and Fibonacci patterns in different physical phenomena, biological patterns are intrinsic to all things and can be quantified using Dedre Gentner’s approach to analogy. For example, Earth’s ocean currents and the melting and freezing of Antarctica resemble the circulatory system and heart, while the production (...)
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  29. Infectivity of ribonucleic acid from Tobacco Mosaic Virus.Alfred Gierer & Gerhard Schramm - 1956 - Nature 177:702-703.
    Upon separation of the protein from the nucleic acid component of tobacco mosaic virus by phenol, using a fast and gentle procedure, the nucleic acid is infective in assays on tobacco leaves. A series of qualitative and quantitative control experiments demonstrates that the biological activity cannot depend on residual proteins in the preparation, but is a property of isolated nucleic acid which is thus the genetic material of the virus.
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  30. Techniques et concepts du vivant en biologie synthétique.Alberto Molina-Pérez - 2009 - Ludus Vitalis 17 (31):237-240.
    [ENGLISH] This article discusses the potential of synthetic biology to address fundamental questions in the philosophy of biology regarding the nature of life and biological functions. Synthetic biology aims to reduce living organisms to their simplest forms by identifying the minimal components of a cell and also to create novel life forms through genetic reprogramming, biobrick assembly, or novel proteins. However, the technical success of these endeavors does not guarantee their conceptual success in defining life. There is (...)
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  31. Oxidative stress and inflammation induced by environmental and psychological stressors: a biomarker perspective.Pietro Ghezzi, Luciano Floridi, Diana Boraschi, Antonio Cuadrado, Gina Manda, Snezana Levic, Fulvio D'Acquisito, Alice Hamilton, Toby J. Athersuch & Liza Selley - 2018 - Antioxidants and Redox Signaling 28 (9):852-872.
    The environment can elicit biological responses such as oxidative stress (OS) and inflammation as a consequence of chemical, physical, or psychological changes. As population studies are essential for establishing these environment-organism interactions, biomarkers of OS or inflammation are critical in formulating mechanistic hypotheses. By using examples of stress induced by various mechanisms, we focus on the biomarkers that have been used to assess OS and inflammation in these conditions. We discuss the difference between biomarkers that are the result of a (...)
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  32. An improved ontological representation of dendritic cells as a paradigm for all cell types.Anna Maria Masci, Cecilia N. Arighi, Alexander D. Diehl, Anne E. Liebermann, Chris Mungall, Richard H. Scheuermann, Barry Smith & Lindsay Cowell - 2009 - BMC Bioinformatics 10 (1):70.
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  33. Messy Chemical Kinds.Joyce C. Havstad - 2018 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 69 (3):719-743.
    Following Kripke and Putnam, the received view of chemical kinds has been a microstructuralist one. To be a microstructuralist about chemical kinds is to think that membership in said kinds is conferred by microstructural properties. Recently, the received microstructuralist view has been elaborated and defended, but it has also been attacked on the basis of complexities, both chemical and ontological. Here, I look at which complexities really challenge the microstructuralist view; at how the view itself might be made more complicated (...)
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  34. On the Possible Transformation and Vanishment of Epistemic Objects.Hans-Jörg Rheinberger - 2016 - Teorie Vědy / Theory of Science 38 (3):269-278.
    When considering the question of possible transformation and disappearance of scientific objects, it is useful to distinguish between epistemic and technical objects. This paper presents preliminary observations and offers a typology of obsolescence. It is based on several case studies drawn from the history of life sciences. The paper proceeds as follows: first, the dynamics of epistemic objects is considered through the examples of Carl Correns’ study of “xenia”, Alfred Kühn’s work on physiological developmental genetics, and Paul Zamecnik’s research on (...)
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  35. Making sense of ‘genetic programs’: biomolecular Post–Newell production systems.Mihnea Capraru - 2024 - Biology and Philosophy 39 (2):1-12.
    The biomedical literature makes extensive use of the concept of a genetic program. So far, however, the nature of genetic programs has received no satisfactory elucidation from the standpoint of computer science. This unsettling omission has led to doubts about the very existence of genetic programs, on the grounds that gene regulatory networks lack a predetermined schedule of execution, which may seem to contradict the very idea of a program. I show, however, that we can make perfect sense of genetic (...)
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  36. Genotype–phenotype mapping and the end of the ‘genes as blueprint’ metaphor.Massimo Pigliucci - 2010 - Philosophical Transactions Royal Society B 365:557–566.
    In a now classic paper published in 1991, Alberch introduced the concept of genotype–phenotype (G!P) mapping to provide a framework for a more sophisticated discussion of the integration between genetics and developmental biology that was then available. The advent of evo-devo first and of the genomic era later would seem to have superseded talk of transitions in phenotypic space and the like, central to Alberch’s approach. On the contrary, this paper shows that recent empirical and theoretical advances have only (...)
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  37. Bacteria are small but not stupid: cognition, natural genetic engineering and socio-bacteriology.J. A. Shapiro - 2007 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38 (4):807-819.
    Forty years’ experience as a bacterial geneticist has taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the twentieth century. Analysis of cellular processes such as metabolism, regulation of protein synthesis, and DNA repair established that bacteria continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus. Studies of genetic recombination, lysogeny, antibiotic resistance and my own work on transposable elements revealed (...)
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  38. Robust processes and teleological language.Jonathan Birch - 2012 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 2 (3):299-312.
    I consider some hitherto unexplored examples of teleological language in the sciences. In explicating these examples, I aim to show (a) that such language is not the sole preserve of the biological sciences, and (b) that not all such talk is reducible to the ascription of functions. In chemistry and biochemistry, scientists explaining molecular rearrangements and protein folding talk informally of molecules rearranging “in order to” maximize stability. Evolutionary biologists, meanwhile, often speak of traits evolving “in order to” optimize (...)
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  39. A semiotic analysis of the genetic information.Charbel El-Hani, Joao Queiroz & Claus Emmeche - 2006 - Semiotica - Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies / Revue de l'Association Internationale de Sémiotique 1 (4):1-68.
    Terms loaded with informational connotations are often employed to refer to genes and their dynamics. Indeed, genes are usually perceived by biologists as basically ‘the carriers of hereditary information.’ Nevertheless, a number of researchers consider such talk as inadequate and ‘just metaphorical,’ thus expressing a skepticism about the use of the term ‘information’ and its derivatives in biology as a natural science. First, because the meaning of that term in biology is not as precise as it is, for (...)
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  40. The gene as the unit of selection: a case of evolutive delusion.Armando Aranda-Anzaldo - 1997 - Ludus Vitalis 5 (9):91-120.
    The unit of selection is the concept of that ‘something’ to which biologists refer when they speak of an adaptation as being ‘for the good of’ something. Darwin identified the organism as the unit of selection because for him the ‘struggle for existence’ was an issue among individuals. Later on it was suggested that, in order to understand the evolution of social behavior, it is necessary to argue that groups, and not individuals, are the units of selection. The last addition (...)
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  41. Macromolecular Pluralism.Matthew H. Slater - 2009 - Philosophy of Science 76 (5):851-863.
    Different chemical species are often cited as paradigm examples of structurally delimited natural kinds. While classificatory monism may thus seem plausible for simple molecules, it looks less attractive for complex biological macromolecules. I focus on the case of proteins that are most plausibly individuated by their functions. Is there a single, objective count of proteins? I argue that the vagaries of function individuation infect protein classification. We should be pluralists about macromolecular classification.
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  42. Life-centered ethics, and the human future in space.Michael N. Mautner - 2008 - Bioethics 23 (8):433-440.
    In the future, human destiny may depend on our ethics. In particular, biotechnology and expansion in space can transform life, raising profound questions. Guidance may be found in Life-centered ethics, as biotic ethics that value the basic patterns of organic gene/protein life, and as panbiotic ethics that always seek to expand life. These life-centered principles can be based on scientific insights into the unique place of life in nature, and the biological unity of all life. Belonging to life then (...)
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  43. Three overlooked key functional classes for building up minimal synthetic cells.Antoine Danchin - 2021 - Synthetic Biology 6 (1):ysab010.
    Assembly of minimal genomes revealed many genes encoding unknown functions. Three overlooked functional categories account for some of them. Cells are prone to make errors and age. As a first key function, discrimination between proper and changed entities is indispensable. Discrimination requires management of information, an authentic, yet abstract, cur- rency of reality. For example proteins age, sometimes very fast. The cell must identify, then get rid of old proteins without destroying young ones. Implementing discrimination in cells leads to the (...)
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  44. (1 other version)Wanting what we don't want to want: Representing Addiction in Interoperable Bio-Ontologies.Janna Hastings, Nicolas Le Novère, Werner Ceusters, Kevin Mulligan & Barry Smith - 2012 - In Janna Hastings, Werner Ceusters, Mark Jensen, Kevin Mulligan & Barry Smith (eds.), Towards an Ontology of Mental Functioning (ICBO Workshop). CEUR. pp. 56-60.
    Ontologies are being developed throughout the biomedical sciences to address standardization, integration, classification and reasoning needs against the background of an increasingly data-driven research paradigm. In particular, ontologies facilitate the translation of basic research into benefits for the patient by making research results more discoverable and by facilitating knowledge transfer across disciplinary boundaries. Addressing and adequately treating mental illness is one of our most pressing public health challenges. Primary research across multiple disciplines such as psychology, psychiatry, biology, neuroscience and (...)
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  45. Ontologies for the study of neurological disease.Alexander P. Cox, Mark Jensen, William Duncan, Bianca Weinstock-Guttman, Kinga Szigeti, Alan Ruttenberg, Barry Smith & Alexander D. Diehl - 2012 - In Alexander P. Cox, Mark Jensen, William Duncan, Bianca Weinstock-Guttman, Kinga Szigeti, Alan Ruttenberg, Barry Smith & Alexander D. Diehl (eds.), Towards an Ontology of Mental Functioning (ICBO Workshop), Third International Conference on Biomedical Ontology. Graz:
    We have begun work on two separate but related ontologies for the study of neurological diseases. The first, the Neurological Disease Ontology (ND), is intended to provide a set of controlled, logically connected classes to describe the range of neurological diseases and their associated signs and symptoms, assessments, diagnoses, and interventions that are encountered in the course of clinical practice. ND is built as an extension of the Ontology for General Medical Sciences — a high-level candidate OBO Foundry ontology that (...)
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  46. Molecular Interactions. On the Ambiguity of Ordinary Statements in Biomedical Literature.Stefan Schulz & Ludger Jansen - 2009 - Applied ontology (4):21-34.
    Statements about the behavior of biochemical entities (e.g., about the interaction between two proteins) abound in the literature on molecular biology and are increasingly becoming the targets of information extraction and text mining techniques. We show that an accurate analysis of the semantics of such statements reveals a number of ambiguities that have to be taken into account in the practice of biomedical ontology engineering: Such statements can not only be understood as event reporting statements, but also as ascriptions (...)
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  47. VO: Vaccine Ontology.Yongqun He, Lindsay Cowell, Alexander D. Diehl, H. L. Mobley, Bjoern Peters, Alan Ruttenberg, Richard H. Scheuermann, Ryan R. Brinkman, Melanie Courtot, Chris Mungall, Barry Smith & Others - 2009 - In Barry Smith (ed.), ICBO 2009: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Biomedical Ontology. Buffalo: NCOR.
    Vaccine research, as well as the development, testing, clinical trials, and commercial uses of vaccines involve complex processes with various biological data that include gene and protein expression, analysis of molecular and cellular interactions, study of tissue and whole body responses, and extensive epidemiological modeling. Although many data resources are available to meet different aspects of vaccine needs, it remains a challenge how we are to standardize vaccine annotation, integrate data about varied vaccine types and resources, and support advanced (...)
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  48. Epigenetics, Evolution, and Us.W. Malcolm Byrnes - 2003 - The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 3 (3):489-500.
    This essay moves along broad lines from molecular biology to evolutionary biology and ecology to theology. Its objectives are to: 1) present some recent scientific findings in the emerging field of epigenetics that indicate that it is “the genome in context,” not genes per se, that are important in biological development and evolution; 2) show that this weakens the gene-centric neo-Darwinist explanation of evolution which, in fact, shares a certain preformationist orientation with intelligent design theory; 3) argue that (...)
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  49. An improved ontological representation of dendritic cells as a paradigm for all cell types.Masci Anna Maria, N. Arighi Cecilia, D. Diehl Alexander, E. Lieberman Anne, Mungall Chris, H. Scheuermann Richard, Barry Smith & G. Cowell Lindsay - 2009 - BMC Bioinformatics 10 (1):70.
    The Cell Ontology (CL) is designed to provide a standardized representation of cell types for data annotation. Currently, the CL employs multiple is_a relations, defining cell types in terms of histological, functional, and lineage properties, and the majority of definitions are written with sufficient generality to hold across multiple species. This approach limits the CL’s utility for cross-species data integration. To address this problem, we developed a method for the ontological representation of cells and applied this method to develop a (...)
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  50. Lmn-2 interacts with Elf-2. On the meaning of common statements in biomedical literature.Stefan Schulz & Ludger Jansen - 2006 - In Stefan Schulz & Ludger Jansen (eds.), Lmn-2 interacts with Elf-2. On the meaning of common statements in biomedical literature. MD. pp. 37-45.
    Statements about the behavior of biological entities, e.g. about the interaction between two proteins, abound in the literature on molecular biology and are increasingly becoming the targets of information extraction and text mining techniques. We show that an accurate analysis of the semantics of such statements reveals a number of ambiguities that is necessary to take into account in the practice of biomedical ontology engineering. Several concurring formalizations are proposed. Emphasis is laid on the discussion of biological dispositions.
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