Lecture Series

Rainer Machné

A Tale of Cell Biology Told by Budding Yeast (and a Cyanobacterium)

A lecture series beyond the known knowns of (cell) biology, exploring the known unknows, the unknown unknowns, and some unknown knowns.

In this lecture series, we will trace a few specific paths through the vast directed acyclic graph of scientific progress1. Is it a linear and logical process (Karl Popper) or a historical development, shaped by traditions, big egos and vanity (Ludwik Fleck)?

Introduction

  1. Quantitative Microbiology: Exponential growth is rarely balanced.

Transcription

  1. Pervasive transcription during the low energy phase of respiratory oscillations.
  2. Transcription at LTR retrotransposons and genome evolution.

Genome Homeostasis

  1. DNA as a metabolic sensor, and
  2. Chromosomal domains, mobile elements and genome evolution.

Protein Homeostasis

  1. Protein homeostasis by a transcriptional oscillator, and
  1. The pulse-width modulation model of gene expression.

Metabolism

  1. Metabolism: feedbacks and the auto-catalytic cycles of life.
  2. Do yeast cells dream of metabolic sheep?
    or: The cell growth cycle as a cell-structural proofreading loop.

Other Species

  1. Same, same in a cyanobacterium (circadian DNA supercoiling homeostasis).
  2. The cell growth cycle in other eukaryotes: circadian and developmental clocks.

Rainer Machné