Physics is our everything
What biophysics studies, who discovered DNA and how new paradigms appear in science
Ivar Maksutov, publisher of Post-Science, talked with biophysicist Maxim Frank-Kamenetsky about biophysics, its main trends, human aging and the future of science.
The main directions of biophysics
– For people familiar with science from the school curriculum, it seems that physics deals with inanimate objects, and biology deals with living ones, and there is a clear boundary between these environments. How is biophysics possible in this case?
– When I was a student, they said that the most interesting events take place at the junction of sciences. Maybe it has ceased to be so relevant now, because science has been strongly integrated. Of course, the new biology of the XXI century arose at the junction of physics, chemistry and biology, and biophysics played a leading role here.
The study of DNA is my specialty, but it is far from the only field of biophysics. She is engaged in the development of physical methods that allow us to determine the structure of life, what a living organism consists of. Without physics, biology could not develop as it develops, because the methods of biology are very approximate.
The birthday of the new biology is considered to be April 25, 1953, when a small note was published in the journal Nature James Watson and Francis Crick on the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid. It was a real biophysical work, because DNA is a chemical compound discovered in nuclei almost a hundred years before the publication of 1953, and its role was completely unknown. At the same time, Watson and Crick took experimental data from the results of X-ray diffraction studies. In their theoretical article, a model of the structure was proposed – the famous double helix. The next landmark article belonged to Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling, where radiographs were shown – the result of scattering X-rays on DNA fibers. The model was confirmed and became the basis on which the whole building of modern biology arose.
The study of DNA is my specialty, but it is far from the only field of biophysics. She is engaged in the development of physical methods that allow us to determine the structure of life, what a living organism consists of. Without physics, biology could not develop as it develops, because the methods of biology are very approximate.
An X-ray of sodium salt fibers in DNA, which was published in 1953 in an article by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling.
– If the study of DNA is physics, then biology does not exist at all?
– In this sense, I am a reductionist by definition, like any physicist. I believe that there is neither chemistry nor biology, but only physics exists: it is the science of nature that surrounds us.
– What are the hot, interesting topics in biophysics?
– Now there has been a colossal paradigm shift in the field of DNA structure and X-ray diffraction analysis. Until recently, the main method for determining the structure of molecules was X-ray diffraction analysis, which originated more than a hundred years ago, when Bragg's law was formulated. It became clear that the structure of molecules could be determined by the pattern of X-ray scattering. Gradually, this method allowed us to learn the structure of large molecules: nucleic acids, proteins, and their complexes, which are the basis of life. In the field of biophysics, the method of X-ray diffraction analysis dominated the entire XX century.
In the XXI century, there has been a paradigm shift: now the method of X-ray diffraction analysis is being replaced by cryo-electron microscopy. This new method has already been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. It allows you to determine the structure of much larger particles than X-ray diffraction analysis can. An important feature: to restore the structure using X-ray diffraction analysis, you need to get crystals from those molecules that you want to study, and the method of cryo-electron microscopy does not require crystallization. You can just take any particle, get its image in different orientations and restore the structure. This is a huge breakthrough in the application of the physical approach to the definition of biological structure.
– What should be monitored in the field of biophysics, in addition to the method of cryo-electron microscopy?
– First of all, it is necessary to monitor the immunotherapy of cancer – a colossal thing that cures thousands of people. This is not just the junction of medicine and physics, information technology and artificial intelligence, but also the transition to personalized medicine, as it is closely related to immunotherapy.
Cancer is not a universal disease, like, for example, the flu. We divide oncological diseases into different types, but each specific tumor is individual. And not only because it is in a particular person, but also because the cells in it have their own genome, different from the genome of other tumors and from the human genome in which it was formed. Cancer always occurs due to changes in DNA as a result of mutations, so treatment should always be personalized.
Treatment of aging and Alzheimer's
– Some particularly radical researchers call aging a disease and are looking for a way to defeat this disease.
– I am skeptical about any gerontological research. In order to subject the methodology, drugs or approaches to strict verification, medical tests are needed. We all know about the benefits or harms of certain things based on special tests on a large sample of people. In such trials, there are always people who are exposed to the action of a conditional drug, and a control group that is not exposed. This is the only way we can actually determine whether this remedy is useful or, conversely, harmful. Unfortunately, when it comes to aging, all these trials must continue for decades.
– Could it be that aging is a simple problem that will suddenly be solved by a new method, and it turns out that the answer to that riddle is in the structure lying on the surface?
– I don't believe it. And I don't believe that aging is a disease. People die not from old age, but from diseases. As a person lives longer and longer, he develops new diseases. Some of them we know how to treat, some of them we don't. In my opinion, the most terrible things that frighten any aging person are Alzheimer's disease, dementia. Unfortunately, despite the colossal efforts and the unthinkable amount of money spent, we have no progress on this issue.
When I moved to Boston, a great scientist from Cambridge named Aaron Klug appeared in the city almost immediately. He gave a lecture at Boston University about Alzheimer's and its molecular mechanism. 25 years have passed since then, and there is no progress in the field of Alzheimer's disease therapy.
About the paradigm shift in science and the future
– It's amazing that at some point there was a group of people who looked at the discovery of DNA and could not believe their eyes.
– This is how science works: no paradigm shift – neither in physics, nor in chemistry, nor in biology – takes place except according to this scenario: a new paradigm appears, and those scientists who were already formed by that time absolutely do not believe in it. The young pick it up, and it takes over the whole community, after those who did not believe in it died.
When Einstein created the theory of relativity, Planck did not believe in it and died without believing it. He would never have believed in it, just like the rest of the physicists of his generation. Then, in the same way, Einstein did not believe in quantum mechanics. He died not believing that, as he said, the Lord God was playing dice. So are all physicists of Einstein's generation. Science is a serious business, a person gives himself entirely to it.
Who was Francis Crick? A loser, a military scientist – he has never made a name for himself in anything. He was already in his thirties, and with him was the boy Jim Watson. And these two impudents suddenly said that genes are some kind of DNA molecule. None of the mature, adult geneticists believed it.
You have read the selections from Maxim Frank-Kamenetsky's interview, and you can watch the entire recording here.
About the author:
Maxim Frank-Kamenetsky – Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, Visiting Professor at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (2014).
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