Re-thinking genes: Bruce Lipton's The Biology of Belief
 Blog - Portal - About - Bookshelf - Links - Misc. - "Hi!"
Back to the Portal >>>
A brief summary and commentary on The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton

This is a short summary of some of the key parts of Bruce Lipton's The Biology of Belief, one of the most entertaining and readable books I've come across, with some of my own thoughts and conclusions added. Lipton talks a lot about evolution, Darwinism, the revival of Lamarck, quantum physics, spirituality, and more in his book, but I am focusing on his cell biology studies in relation to the role of genes in determining life.

The theory of our genes determining who we are and what we do is fundamentally flawed. The effects of the acceptance of genetic determinism, and on a deeper level, our perception of inevitability regarding the human situation, is one of the biggest barriers in truly understanding what it means to be human.

To understand genes and their role in life, we need to take a brief tour into cell biology. Lipton spends a great deal of his book explaining the revelations he encountered through working in cell biology; single-celled organisms are where life begun it's dance, right up to where we are now. Cells hold the secrets of life.

Darwin's contribution of how evolution worked, his theory of evolution, included the idea that "hereditary factors" passed from parent to child control the characteristics of an individual's life. From then onwards, scientists began to dissect life down to it's fundamentals, finally discovering the DNA double helix, the part of the cell that contains the genetic blueprints of life. The praises for DNA and it's determining role in life were sung. DNA controlled who we are!

There were a few problems with the claim that genes controlled life. A major flaw is that genes cannot turn themselves on and off on their own. An environmental factor has to trigger gene activity. This has been acknowledged by mainstream science, but almost completely ignored. Once Dr. Lipton realised this, he began studies into what is now known as epigenetics: the study of the environment in regulating gene activity.

A cell has a number of basic components: the nucleus that contains the genetic materal, the energy-producing mitochondria, the protective membrane around the outside rim, and the cytoplasm in between. Most of the cell's structures are referred to as organelles, which are it's minature organs suspended in cytoplasm. The organelles of the cell are the equivalent of the tissues and organs in our own bodies.

Lipton offers the idea of cells as minature humans:

Even though humans are made up of trillions of cells, I stressed that there is not one "new" function in our bodies that is not already expressed in the single cell. Each eukaryote (nucleus-containing cell) possesses the functional equivalent of our nervous system, endocrine system, muscle and skeletal systems, circulatory system, integument (skin), reproductive system and even a primitive immune system, which utilizes a family of antibody-like "ubiquitin" proteins.

I also made it clear to my students that each cell is an intelligent being that can survive on its own, as scientists demonstrate when they remove individual cells from the body and grow them in a culture. As I knew intuitively when I was a child, these smart cells are imbued with intent and purpose; they actively seek environments that support their survival while simultaneously avoiding toxic or hostile ones. Like humans, single cells analyze thousands of stimuli from the microenvironment they inhabit. Through the analysis of this data, cells select appropriate behavioural responses to ensure their survival.

Single celled organisms were the first life forms on this planet. For the following 2.75 billion years, single celled organisms were the only life on Earth. This all changed around 750 million years ago when cells began to group together to form multi-cellular organisms. The first communities were relatively small, but over time organisms consisting of millions, billions and trillions of cells formed.

The evolutionary push for ever-bigger communities is simply a reflection of the biological imperative to survive. The more awareness an organism has of its environment, the better its chances for survival. When cells band together they increase their awareness exponentially. [my emphasis]

[...]

In order to survive at such high densities, the cells created structured environments. These sophisticated communities subdivided the workload with more precision and effectiveness than the ever changing organisational charts that are a fact of life in big corporations. It proved more efficient for the community to have individual cells assigned to specialized tasks...
Over time, this pattern of differentiation, i.e. the distribution of the workload among the members of the community, became embedded in the genes of every cell in the community, significantly increasing the organism's efficiency and its ability to survive.

Before we move on to the issue of genes and the role of the environment, we have to look at proteins, the building blocks of life. Our bodies are made up of over 100,000 types of proteins. Each protein is made up of a linear string of amino acids, of which there are 20 types. Visualise amino acids as beads, and the assembled proteins as the bead necklace. The flexible links - peptide bonds - between the amino acids in a protein backbone enable proteins to adopt many shapes, from a straight rod to a knotted ball.

Amino acids also have electromagnetic charges. It is this interaction of electromagnetic charges among the amino acids that provides the source of movement for proteins. When similarly assembled proteins meet, their differing charges can cause eachother to move, almost like cogs in a machine. It is this movement that forms the basis of all biological functioning. Cells exploit the movement of these proteins to fuel a range of cellular functions, which keeps the cell alive, which keeps us alive.

So where does DNA fit in? DNA contains the instructions for creating certain proteins from different arrangements of amino acids. That's as far as it goes! The actual interaction of proteins is not controlled by the genes. There is more though. Let's look at the discovery of DNA:

In 1910, intensive microscopic analyses revealed that the hereditary information passed on generation after generation was contained in chromosomes, thread-like structures that become visible in the cell just before it divides into two "daughter" cells. Chromosomes are incorporated into the daughter cell's largest organelle, the nucleus. [Dan: thus allowing the DNA to be passed on to the next cell when the daughter cell splits to form its own daughter cells] When scientists isolated the nucleus, they dissected the chromosomes and found that the hereditary elements were essentially comprised of only two kinds of molecules, protein and DNA.

Out of the two types of molecules, DNA was found to actually contain the hereditary information. The role of the protein that accompanied the DNA was completely overshadowed. We'll come back to the accompanying protein soon.

Watson and Crick [who discovered the structure of DNA] also explained why DNA is the perfect hereditary molecule. Each DNA strand is normally intertwined with a second strand of DNA, a loosely wrapped configuration known as the "double helix." The genius of this system is that the sequences of DNA bases on both strands are mirror images of eachother. When the two strands of DNA unwind, each single strand contains the information to make an exact, complementary copy of itself. So through a process of seperating the strands of the double helix, DNA molecules become self-replicating. This observation led to the assumption that DNA "controlled" its own replication... it was its own "boss."

The "suggestion" that DNA controlled its own replication and also served as the blueprint for the body's proteins led Francis Crick to create biology's Central Dogma, the belief that DNA rules...
In the dogma's scheme of how life unfolds, DNA perches loftily on the top, followed by RNA. RNA is the short-lived Xerox copy of the DNA. As such, it is the physical template encoding the amino acid sequence that makes up a protein's backbone... Because the character of a living organism is defined by the nature of its proteins, and its proteins are encoded in the DNA, then by logic, DNA would represent the "first cause" or primary determinant of an organism's traits.

The optimism regarding the primacy of DNA was somewhat muted after the Human Genome found that the entire Human Genome consisted of approximately 25,000 genes, as opposed to the 120,000 genes scientists estimated were needed to account for all the proteins and protein regulators in our bodies. The one-gene to one-protein concept was a fundamental tenet of genetic determinism. Where was all the other information coming from to form such a wide range of proteins? How can genetic determinism, the theory that genes control life, explain the massive differences between a human being and a Caenorhabditis elegans nematode roundworm? There are only 1500 more genes in our make-up than the roundworm's! How can 1500 genes account for the differences between a thousand celled primitive worm, and a fifty trillion celled human being? Humans and rodents have roughly the same number of genes.

Genetic determinism relies on the assumption that the nucleus, where the DNA is found, is the brain of the cell. The logic is that if the genes control life, and they reside in the nucleus, then the nucleus must be the control center of cell, the brain. If this is true, then the cell would immediately die following the loss of the nucleus, but this is not the case. Many cells that have their nucleus removed, a process called enucleation, can live for up to two months or more without genes!

Enucleated cells are able to actively ingest and metabolise food, and maintain co-ordinated operation of their physiological systems. In fact, enucleated cells are just fine, until they want to reproduce that is - removing the cell's building instruction set, it's DNA, means that the cell has no protein blueprints to pass onto the daughter cells. It is impotent. The enucleated cell also has another problem: when parts of the cell are worn down and need replacing, there is no DNA to read from to create new proteins, which is why the cells eventually die after two or more months.

Our experiment was designed to test the idea that the nucleus is the "brain" of the cell. If the cell had died immediately following enucleation, the observations would have at least supported that belief. However, the results are unambiguous: enucleated cells still exhibit complex, coordinated, life-sustaining behaviours, which imply that the cell's "brain" is still intact and functioning.

So if the nucleus and its genes are not the brain of the cell, what is? Doesn't the reproductive function of the nucleus sound familiar?

Enucleated cells die not because they have lost their brain but because they have lost their reproductive capabilities. Without the ability to reproduce their parts, enucleated cells cannot replace failed protein building blocks, nor replicate themselves. So the nucleus is not the brain of the cell - the nucleus is the cell's gonad! Confusing the gonad with the brain is an understandable error because science has always been and still is a partriarchal endeavour. Males have often been accused of thinking with their gonads, so it's not entirely surprising that science has inadvertently confused the nucleus with the cell's brain!

Before moving on to discovering the real brain of the cell, let's go back to the protein that scientists found along with the DNA in the chromosomes of cells. What role does this protein play? The DNA forms the core of the chromosome, while the proteins cover the DNA like a sleeve. When the genes are covered, their information cannot be read to create new proteins. How do you remove the sleeve to read the DNA? You need an environmental signal to spur the regulatory "sleeve" protein to change shape, to detach from the DNA double helix so that it can be read and copied. Lipton offers this analogy:

The dials and switches of the TV fine-tune the screen by allowing you to turn it on and off and modulate a number characteristics, including color, hue, contrast, brightness, vertical and horizontal holds. By adjusting the dials, you can alter the appearance of the screen, while not actually changing the original broadcast. [my emphasis] This is precisely the role of regulatory proteins. Studies of protein synthesis reveal that epigenetic "dials" can create 2,000 or more variations of proteins for the same gene blueprint [my emphasis!!].

Studies of agouti mice have shown that an enriched environment can override the genetic mutations in these mice. When the mice were fed methyl-group-rich supplements, the methyl groups attached to the DNA, changing the binding characteristics of the regulatory chromosomal proteins. Methylating DNA can silence or modify gene activity.


These are genetically identical sister agouti mice. Maternal methyl donor supplementation shifts coat color of the offspring from yellow to brown, and reduces the incidence of obesity, diabetes and cancer

Through this information and much more that Lipton offers, we can begin to move from the primacy of DNA, to the primacy of environment -- the way in which they code these proteins is determined by environmental factors, and even then the rest the interaction of the resulting proteins, the basis of life, is not the work of the the genes. The genes contain the codes to make the bricks -- they fall a long way short of building the house! In addition, the way that the built house interacts with its environment effects how the gene's "sleeve" regulates the building of new bricks.

Let's go back to the brain of the cell. If the nucleus is the reproductive organ of the cell, what is the brain of the cell, and what role does the environment play in the operation of this brain? Lipton suggests that the true brain that controls cellular life is the membrane. The membrane seems to be a simple semi-permeable, three-layered skin that keeps the contents of the cytoplasm from spilling out, but its role in cellular life is massive.

Prokaryotes, the most primitive organisms on this planet, do not have a nucleus. In fact, they have only a cell membrane and a small amount of cytoplasm. Prokaryotes carry out basic physiologic processes of life just like more complicated cells. They eat, digest, breath, excrete and are capable of "neurological" processing. Prokaryotes can sense and propel themselves towards food, and can also sense toxins and environmental dangers, employing escape maneuvers to evade threats. A prokaryotes' cytoplasm contains no organelles that are found in more advanced eukaryotic cells - the only cellular structure that can be considered the brain of the prokaryote is its cell membrane.

To help visualise the structure of a cell membrane, Lipton offers the analogy of two pieces of bread with a slab of butter in between. In this slab of butter, there are olives, some stuffed, some solid. When environmental substances come into contact with the sandwich, they seep through the bread layer, but cannot get through the butter because it is oily. The solid olives also block the flow of substances into the cell, but the stuffed olives allow the dye a passage through the butter, through the bottom piece of bread, and into the inside of the cell.

The unstuffed olives are the important part of the membrane. They are called Intergral Membrane Proteins (IMPs). They allow nutrients, waste materials, as well as other forms of "information" to be transported across the membrane. Receptor IMPs are the cell's sense organs, acting as "nano-antennas" tuned to respond to specific environmental signals, both internal and external. Effector IMPs work with the information obtained from the receptor IMPs, and co-ordinate the relevant action in response to various environmental stimuli.

These IMPs or their byproducts provide signals that control the binding of the chromosome's regulatory proteins that form a "sleeve" around the DNA. In contrast to conventional wisdom, genes do not control their own activity. Instead it is the membrane's effector proteins, operating in response to environmental signals picked up by the membrane's receptors, which control the "reading" of genes so that worn-out proteins can be replaced, or new proteins can be created... the cell's operations are primarily molded by its interaction with the environment, not by it's genetic code... The membrane's function of interacting "intelligently" with the environment to produce behaviour makes it the true brain of the cell.

Lipton goes on to compare the membrane to a computer chip, after defining both as liquid crystal semiconductors with gates and channels. The larger analogy of the programmable biocomputer sums up most of what we've been discussing:

The fact that the cell membrane and a computer chip are homologues means that it is both appropriate and instructive to better fathom the works of the cell by comparing it to a personal computer. The first big-deal insight that comes from such an exercise is that computers and cells are programmable. The second corollary insight is that the programmer lies outside the computer/cell. Biological behaviour and gene activity are dynamically linked to information from the environment, which is downloaded into the cell.

As I conjured up a biocomputer, I realized that the nucleus is simply a memory disk, a hard drive containing the DNA programs that encode the production of proteins. Let's call it the Double Helix Memory Disk. In your home computer you can insert such a memory disk containing a large number of specialised programs like word processing, graphics and spreadsheets. After you download those programs into active memory, you can remove the disk from the computer without interfering with the program that is running. When you remove the Double Helix Memory Disk by removing the nucleus, the work of the cellular protein machine goes on because the information that created the protein machine has already been downloaded. Enucleated cells get into trouble only when they need the gene programs in the ejected Double Helix Memory Disk to replace old proteins or make different proteins...

Data is entered into the cell/computer via the membrane's receptors, which represent the cell's "keyboard." Receptors trigger the membrane's effector proteins, which act as the cell/computer's "Central Processing Unit" (CPU). The "CPU" effector proteins convert environmental information into the behavioral language of biology.

While Lipton and others claim these are the findings of the New Biology, they can be arrived at through simple logic: Cells cannot pre-program themselves to interact with a dynamic environment. We know that life survives by adapting to its surroundings, so it is logically obvious that the determining factor in life is interaction and action based on environmental influences. Genes on their own have no use in this area, they are merely blueprints of reproduction.

Understanding the primacy of environment, we come back to the connections, interactions, and relationships, between different beings, and how it is these systems of connections that define life, rather than any inherent essence which somehow exists without any outside influence. This is the message of our ancestors who were embedded in the natural workings of life, it is the story of evolution, it is the findings of biology, it is the message of quantum physics, and it is the knowledge most relevant in helping the human race solve its problems. Re-arranging our connections with eachother to remove un-necessary domination and suffering is our challenge.

I see genetic determinism as one of the main parts of what I call the inevitability myth in mass culture. The inevitability myth has many fronts. The core of it is that it was inevitable that humans came to "rule" the world - it may be a bit nasty but we have "original sin" already so whatever. Cancer, a disease practically non-existant outside of industrial societies, is now also part of our inevitability myth. It just happens. Just like people supposedly become evil, violent and dominating without any outside influence.

The inevitability myth serves to de-stabilise and disempower humans from what is truly human. The contemporary idea of "newer is better" is a primary example of this. Our culture has no wisdom at its core, only a never-ending stream of abstract ideas that have little relevance to our life and happiness here. These new ideas are for scientists and other professionals to understand, not you. This stream of cultural nonsense overwhelms most people, leaving them helpless and craving some higher authority to put it all right.

What I have just summarised of Bruce Lipton's work is not even half of his book. In the second part, he looks at quantum physics, placebo and nocebos, energetic communication, and the idea and science behind our beliefs changing our biology. You'll have to buy the book to read about all that, and I highly recommend everyone does as it's very inspiring.