This is a brief summary of The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, and a general introduction to the discipline of epigenetics. I originally put this page together sometime around 2006 after first reading the book. I've revamped it for the new site (17/09/08).

Not long back Santa did an awesome job and gave me Bruce Lipton's The Biology of Belief. I finished it by Boxing day and I think it's one of the most entertaining and readable science books I've come across in a while. Lipton talks a lot about evolution, Darwinism, the revival of Lamarck, quantum physics, energy healing, and more in his book. In this page I am mostly focusing on his cell biology studies, in relation to the role of genes in determining behaviour, character, health and so on.

Right from the outset, Lipton immediately scores himself a prime spot on the Scientific Inquisition's Most Wanted list by claiming that genetic determinism, the view that life is one big gene-game and that our genes are determining "who we are" and "what we do", is fundamentally flawed, and furthermore that our perceptions can alter our biology. Lipton, however, isn't just a believer in Better Things: he's an experienced cell biologist, and spends a great deal of his book explaining the revelations he encountered through working with cells. The study of cell biology is an apt place to begin such an important enquiry, because single-celled organisms are life's dancefloor, and our great-great-great-great ancestors. As Lipton was to discover, cells can tell us a lot about the secrets of life.

Nearly 150 years ago, Darwin released his On the Origin of Species, one of the most important and influential documents of our scientific age. Darwin's contribution to the already existing theory of evolution included the idea that "hereditary factors" passed from parent to child control the characteristics of an individual's life. From the second this doctrine was accepted, scientists worked relentlessly 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. Terms like "genes" and "DNA" eventually became common gossip, and the average person came to understand that science had discovered the evolutionary slave-drivers that drastically shaped our lives and behaviour.

There were, however, a few problems with the claim that genes controlled life. Lipton identifies the key flaw by pointing out that genes cannot turn themselves on and off on their own. An environmental factor has to trigger gene activity. This fact had been acknowledged by mainstream science, but for quite some time these environmental influences were pushed aside or downplayed while biologists continued to gaze at the seductive curves of the double helix. Once Lipton recognised this gaping hole in the genetic chain of events, he began research into what is now known as epigenetics: the study of the environment in regulating gene activity. Since he begun his efforts, the field of epigenetics has really expanded, gradually receiving more attention and funding. The result is studies like this one, showing that basic lifestyle choices can effect significant change at the genetic level.

To communicate the massive implications of epigenetics, and to get a better perspective of how we tick, Lipton gives his readers a Cell Biology 101. A cell has a number of basic components: the nucleus (which contains the genetic materal), the energy-producing mitochondria, the protective membrane around the outside rim, and the squishy cytoplasm in between all of them. Most of the cell's structures are referred to as organelles, minature organs suspended in cytoplasm, which are the equivalent of the tissues and organs in our own bodies. Carrying this to its logical conclusion, Lipton offers the model 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 lifeforms on this planet, and for the following 2.75 billion years, were the only lifeforms on this planet. This all changed sometime 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 super-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.

What does this have to do with genetic determinism and epigenetics? Hang in there, we have a few more puzzle pieces to connect first, starting with 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 a bead necklace. The flexible links between the amino acids in the protein necklace, called peptide bonds, enable the whole protein to adopt many shapes, from a straight rod to a knotted ball.

These amino acids also have electromagnetic charges. It is this interaction of electromagnetic charges among the amino acids that provides the kinetic fuel for proteins. When similarly assembled proteins meet, their differing charges push each other around, generating movement. It is this movement that forms the basis of all biological functioning, the "go" of the organic universe. 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 that say, "put these amino acids together in this order to make this protein." They do not offer instructions like "build tumour", "be confident", or "recite Grandad's worryingly racist theology." DNA simply codes the protein building blocks. After the creation of these proteins, the genes are left behind. The assimilation of proteins into bodily structures is the scope and responsibility of other organic forces, yet to be fully identified or understood. There's more though: let's zoom back to 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. [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.

In case gene, chromosome and DNA were blurring into one messy concept in your head. Not my work, jacked from Google Images.

Out of the two types of molecules, DNA was found to contain the hereditary information, and so the role of the protein that accompanied the DNA was overlooked. Remember those poor banished proteins: we'll come back to them soon.

Watson and Crick 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 Project 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, considering that there are only 1500 more genes in our make-up than the roundworms! 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.

Lipton goes on to explain that 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 as Lipton discovered, this is not the case at all. 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 don't fit the role of the "brain" of the cell, what role do they fit? 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 offering a more accurate guess at which organelle works as the cells "brain", let's return to those abandoned proteins that scientists found alongside DNA, in the chromosomes of cells. What role do these proteins 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. These sleeves not only determine when a gene can or cannot be copied, but also the particular expression of that gene:

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. 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 from the same gene blueprint. [my emphasis!!]

As one example of this, studies of agouti mice have shown that an enriched environment can override the genetic mutations usually present in this particular species. 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

Lipton concludes that it is through understanding these new insights that we can establish a "New Biology", one that has moved on from the primacy of DNA, to the primacy of environment. The reasoning is simple: genes contain the codes to make the building bricks of the body - but they fall a long way short of building the house! In addition, the way that the built house interacts with its environment affects how the builder will shape future blocks. Rupert Sheldrake, another pioneering biologist who sits pretty high on the Scientific Inquisition's Top 10 Heretics, uses the same analogy:

We know what, DNA does: it codes for proteins; it codes for the sequence of amino acids which form proteins. However, there is a big difference between coding for the structure of a protein - a chemical constituent of the organism - and programming the development of an entire organism. It is the difference between making bricks and building a house out of the bricks. You need the bricks to build the house. If you have defective bricks, the house will be defective. But the plan of the house is not contained in the bricks, or the wires, or the beams, or cement.

Analogously, DNA only codes for the materials from which the body is constructed: the enzymes, the structural proteins, and so forth. There is no evidence that it also codes for the plan, the form, the morphology of the body. To see this more clearly, think of your arms and legs. The form of the arms and legs is different; it's obvious that they have a different shape from each other. Yet the chemicals in the arms and legs are identical. The muscles are the same, the nerve cells are the same, the skin cells are the same, and the DNA is the same in all the cells of the arms and legs. In fact, the DNA is the same in all the cells of the body. DNA alone cannot explain the difference in form; something else is necessary to explain form.

After emphasising the Primacy of Environment over genetic determinism, Lipton returns to the issue of the cells brain. If the nucleus is best modelled as the reproductive organ of the cell, what part of cell most resembles the brain, 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. At first the membrane seems only 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 colossal.

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. Despite this, prokaryotes still carry out the basic physiological 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 various substances 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.

Lipton's insights, which he defines as part of the New Biology, along with the growing field of epigenetics, call for a serious re-thinking of genetic determinism. I will emphasise, obviously, that genes are no jokes: they do form a vital foundation of life, not to mention acting as the primary medium of information transfer in the biological world. But it's logical that cells cannot pre-program themselves to interact with a dynamic environment. Understanding the primacy of environment, we come back to the relationships between different beings, recognising that it is these systems of connections that define life, rather than a Platonic Idea-essence which exists apart from outside influence. This message is echoed in quantum physics, in the wisdom of Eastern mystics, and throughout the whole story of evolution.

What I have just summarised of Bruce Lipton's work is not even half of his book. In the second part, he looks in more depth at quantum physics, placebos and nocebos, energetic communication, and more of the science behind our beliefs changing our biology. You'll have to buy the book to read about all that. Of course, being a free education beacon, we also have an essay or two covering similar topics.

Further Reading

• The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton.

• The Genie in your Genes by Dawson Church. A great overview of the front-line in modern holistic healing, including a lot of mind-blowing epigenetic and energy-based research.

• Bruce Lipton online.

• For more depth and pretty pictures, check Mark Hill's excellent epigenetics page.

• Train your Mind, Change your DNA, by Sharon Begley: "It's being billed as 'the first comprehensive study of how the mind can affect gene expression.' By "mind", they mean mental practices such as meditation and prayer, which are among the techniques used by the 19 long-term practitioners of the relaxation response who were studied, along with 19 volunteers who had never engaged in such practices. After the latter went through eight weeks of training, the scientists compared before-and-after patterns of gene expression, finding that mental training alters the expression of genes involved in inflammation, in the form of cell suicide called apoptosis (which can keep damaged cells from forming cancers), and in how the body handles damaging free radicals."

• Epigenetics: A Web Tour, Science Magazine.