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Un simple système métabolique qui s'autoorganise| old_uid | 8591 |
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| title | Un simple système métabolique qui s'autoorganise |
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| start_date | 2010/04/20 |
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| schedule | 17h-18h30 |
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| online | no |
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| summary | The definition of life has excited little interest among molecular biologists during the past half-century, and the enormous development in biology during that time has been largely based on an analytical approach in which all biological entities are studied in terms of their components, the process being extended to greater and greater detail without limit. Future advances, for example for creating artificial life or for taking biotechnology beyond the level of tinkering, will need more serious attention to be given to the question of what makes a living organism living. According to Robert Rosen's theory of (M,R)-systems (metabolism-replacement systems), the central idea missing from molecular biology is that of metabolic circularity, most evident from the obvious but commonly ignored fact that enzymes are not given from outside but are products of metabolism, and thus metabolites. Rosen's theory constituted a fundamental advance in our understanding of the essential nature of a living organism as a self-organizing system, one that is closed to efficient causation, synthesizing, and maintaining all of the catalysts necessary for sustained operation during the whole period of its lifetime. Although it is not difficult to construct a model metabolic system to represent an (M,R)-system, such a model system will typically appear to lack organizational invariance, an essential property of a living (M,R)-system. To have this property, an (M,R)-system must not only be closed to external causation, it must also have its organization coded within itself. Here we shall discuss different aspects of Rosen's approach, and put it in the context of other theories of the living state, such as autopoiesis and autocatalytic sets |
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| responsibles | Longo, Mossio |
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