Design of device and model for accurately measuring atomic effects on biological material.

Warburg "proved" that cancer was created by a lack of oxygen. We are told day in and day out all kinds of reasons for cancer, maladies, and diseases along with "cures".

It seems today with all our technology we are really not any closer to understanding the cause and effect of serious illnesses. Although we've been successful with some diseases there are still many we know very little about(although in some cases much research has been done).

For example, Warburg shows through experimentation that lack of oxygen can produce cancer. We are told that radiation produces cancer. The method of these effects are, seemingly, completely different. Radiation produces cancer through mutation while lack of oxygen produces cancer through a change in the chemical produce of energy production.

The effect of radiation and lack of oxygen are immediate. The question is what is the true cause. It's hard for me to believe that radiation can produce cancer through mutation since this would be highly unlikely(although not impossible and would depend on the amount of radiation among other factors). Why? Simply because all of the possible ways radiation can effect dna/rna it would surely be highly unlikely that it could trigger the exact mutation needed for cancer. Of course there maybe many possible mutations but if Warburg is right and cancer is solely due to lack of oxygen then most likely this mutation would be extremely small. Although, again, it depends on the numbers.

In any case what this post is about is not so much the above but developing a physical foundation for studying the effects, such as the above, on biological material.

If we could design such an experimental method that would give the atomic(not nuclear) effect such the cause of something on the biological process(such as radiation or lack of oxygen) then we could possible understand the mechanism in a more fundamental way. Since the human body is extremely complex it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine how any specific instance will behave(person X may get cancer under the exact same circumstances where person Y doesn't).

I was thinking about how one could go about this and what I realized was if we could create a device that would measure all the physically important variables for biological material(temp, pressure, chemical concentrations, etc...) then using physics we could should be able to tell how the system changed. This change is what is important because the change is the problem if it is different from the natural biological growth.

So, instead of taking a human and giving him a pill and then measuring the outcome... possibly doing this for many cases and getting a statistical analysis, we can determine using physics what really cased the change. Because it is done atomically or quasi-atomically we can get a much more fundamental analysis than using a complex system such as a rat or human.

Example: Effects of radiation(this is well know but could be used to determine precisely what is going on).

Take our magical device which is simply a box that we can check any measurement inside it that we like. Place a small amount of biological material used for study and a radiation pellet(possibly someway to control it but that is not important for this thought experiment).

Now what will happen? If radiation causes any change in the biological material THEN this change must be propagated into the physical measurements of the system.

Suppose we have an identical setup also but without the radiation(or a "placebo" tablet having the same weight).

1. If the radiation causes any effect on the biological material then that material much change it's density(and probably it's weight)
2. if the biological material changes it's biological process it will most likely change the way it grows. Using more oxygen, food, or whatever
3. The temperature may change due to a change in energy production
4. .... .... n. ....

Basically the numbers represent changes that can be measured through the physical factors of the system. If radiation created cancer then this means one would have more cells than the control case and more oxygen would be used, more food, the weight would increase, etc...

Now, the trick is not to try to theorize from one simple case but to parameterize the variables and have many identical cases with a single parameter being varied. We could change the concentration of oxygen, temperature, light, or whatever we need in the above experiment to see how it effects the cells and compare them against the control cases.

This is basically using simple mathematics where we have an unknown function f() that depends on many variables and parameters and we are simply sampling the function. From this we can approximate it by simple interpolation and extrapolation. (f would be the output of the system)

We could then study the effects of many things on biological material and get their true atomic effect. Compound effects could then be studied once the individual effects have been to see what if any new effect is introduced. (does taking a lot of X and Y together produce more of an effect than X or Y alone, etc...)

So that?s the basic idea. Obviously it would be much more complex if implemented but the above is just an outline how an experiment could go.

So...

1. Question for the engineers: Would it be possible to build such a device(a box with many measurement devices) practically that could measure many of the important physical variables needed for biological processes?

1. Question for physicists: How accurate could we model the biological effects? We have a closed system and hypothetically all the physical variables that we need. This would seem to say we have everything we need. Obviously we can't build an electron microscope into each box so the biological material would seem to be a black box itself(but in which case do know something about it and can peer into it at times).

The basic point of doing such things would be to scientifically determine what things really do have effects on human cellular structure and processes. I get tired of hearing things like "Aspirin reduces heart attacks", "Flaxseed oil cures cancer", etc... etc... etc... etc... etc... etc...

We are inundated with this kind crap day in and day out and no one seems to know if it's true or not(in some cases science has a good amount of evidence but in many cases it doesn't). If we could take the complexity a full biological creature out of it(at least at the start) and just see the physical effects at the cellular level we might be able to put many of those claims to rest.

I don't know how Warburg did his experiment but I can imagine that if we had many of our magical devices we could use them to easily determine the effect of oxygen and radiation on cancer. Just use different concentrations of oxygen and measure the outcomes. If we wanted we could do this statically by having many identical devices setup and record the results.

I believe if we did have something similar to what I have describe(Again, I'm just outlining an idea) it could help us get away from all this hocus pocus bullshit that seems ever increasing. (I'm not saying it alone will give all the answers but it will provide some we don't have)

ill

s.

Ah! Now I get it. Bullshit is horseshit! Enlightening. :) john