{"id":153892,"date":"2022-12-30T10:25:18","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T16:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/14-michael-levin-our-body-is-a-collection-of-intelligent-organisms"},"modified":"2022-12-30T10:25:18","modified_gmt":"2022-12-30T16:25:18","slug":"14-michael-levin-our-body-is-a-collection-of-intelligent-organisms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/14-michael-levin-our-body-is-a-collection-of-intelligent-organisms","title":{"rendered":"#14 Michael Levin \u2014 Our Body is a Collection of Intelligent Organisms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VcPqzErExqg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>How do our bodies know what to become?<\/p>\n<p>There are no instructions in our genes that code for the exact 3D structure of our bodies. There\u2019s no tiny human contained in our DNA. So, what powers the transformation of the first cell in the embryo to a full-blown organism?<\/p>\n<p>Dr Michael Levin is attacking this problem and, in the process of answering it, his lab is uncovering an entirely new way of looking at biology.<\/p>\n<p>== What we talk about ==<br \/> 0:04 \u2014 Introduction.<br \/> 1:20 \u2014 You were a software engineer. How did you get interested in biology?<br \/> 6:50 \u2014 Can bacteria exhibit intelligent behavior?<br \/> 7:46 \u2014 How do organisms take their final shape?<br \/> 22:51 \u2014 How do cells in our body know when to stop multiplying?<br \/> 27:49 \u2014 Analogs of software and hardware in developmental biology.<br \/> 34:20 \u2014 Where are the body plans stored in complex organisms like ours?<br \/> 43:33 \u2014 What post-DNA paradigms are important in biology?<br \/> 48:20 \u2014 What is regenerative medicine?<br \/> 50:20 \u2014 How far have we progressed in regenerative medicine?<br \/> 52:52 \u2014 Xenobots: world\u2019s first synthetic organisms.<br \/> 1:00:12 \u2014 How to program Xenobots.<br \/> 1:05:13 \u2014 How do you handle the ethical dilemma while you are working with conscious organisms?<br \/> 1:10:22 \u2014 How do you enable the scientific creativity in your lab and amongst your students? And is it a teachable skill?<\/p>\n<p>== About the guest ==<br \/> Michael Levin is a Distinguished Professor in the Biology department at Tufts and serves as director of the Allen Discovery Center. He holds a PhD in biology from the Harvard University. At Tufts, his research group is interested in figuring out how our bodies know what to become.<\/p>\n<p>He believes that what guides our body plans is bio-electric communication between different units. Our bodies take shape the way they have because each of our subunits \u2014 cells, tissues, organs \u2014 collectively decides it to be that way.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/14-michael-levin-our-body-is-a-collection-of-intelligent-organisms\">Continue reading \u201c#14 Michael Levin \u2014 Our Body is a Collection of Intelligent Organisms\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do our bodies know what to become? There are no instructions in our genes that code for the exact 3D structure of our bodies. There\u2019s no tiny human contained in our DNA. So, what powers the transformation of the first cell in the embryo to a full-blown organism? Dr Michael Levin is attacking this [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}