Keith Baverstock

University of Eastern Finland | UEF · Environmental and Biological Sciences

Introduction to: Online issue of the Journal with a Focus Article, "The Gene: An Appraisal", by Keith Baverstock. The issue contains, in addition an Editorial by Denis Noble, seven commentaries by other gene experts, and a response to criticisms by Baverstock. Baverstock argues that genes should not be thought of as regulating cellular production...

The central conclusions of “The Gene: An Appraisal” are that genetic variance does not underpin biological evolution, and, therefore, that genes are not Mendel’s units of inheritance. In this response, I will address the criticisms I have received via commentaries on that paper by defending the following statements: 1. Epistasis does not explain...

On the basis of empirical evidence, a) the evolution of _E. coli _is not driven by genetic variance, b) the laws that govern the evolution of _E. coli_ are generic and apply to all natural systems, including galaxies, and c) genes are not Mendel’s unit of inheritance.

The case has been made that the-gene-centric approach to biology, which has prevailed over the past ~100 years, should be replaced by a fundamental framework based on the cell being a far from equilibrium complex dissipative system, regulated and governed by its phenotype (1, 2), the metaphor for which is a brain. This independent attractor (IA) mo...

The gene can be described as the foundational concept of modern biology. As such, it has spilled over into daily discourse, yet it is acknowledged among biologists to be ill-defined. Here, following a short history of the gene, I analyse critically its role in inheritance, evolution, development, and morphogenesis. Wilhelm Johannsen's genotype-conc...

Editorial Polygenic scores: Are they a public health hazard? a b s t r a c t I argue here that polygenic scores are a public health hazard because the underlying methodology, genome wide association, from which they are derived, incorrectly assumes that the information encoded in the genomic DNA sequence is causal in terms of the cellular phenotype...

Health care based on gene sequencing and genomics is increasingly becoming a reality: it is timely to review Crick’s sequence hypothesis for its fitness for this purpose. The sequence hypothesis is central to the prediction and correction of disease traits from gene sequence information. Considerable success in this respect has been achieved for ra...

Anesthesia and consciousness represent 2 mysteries not only for biology but also for physics and philosophy. Although anesthesia was introduced to medicine more than 160 y ago, our understanding of how it works still remains a mystery. The most prevalent view is that the human brain and its neurons are necessary to impose the effects of anesthetics...

The second law of thermodynamics is on one hand understood to account for irrevocable flow of energy from the top down, on the other hand it is seen to imply irreversible increase of disorder. This tension between the 2 stances is resolved in favor of the free energy consumption when entropy is derived from the statistical mechanics of open systems...

Genes alone do not dictate phenotype. Applying dynamical systems theory to biological organisms, Keith Baverstock argues that natural selection is based on metabolic efficiency, not on genetic variation. Cellular phenotypes function as systems attractors, the real units of inheritance.

With his telescope to his blind eye, Michael Fumento manages not to see two signals: the public health costs of nuclear accidents, and the economic costs of dealing with nuclear waste.

We regard the basic unit of the organism, the cell, as a complex dissipative natural process functioning under the second law of thermodynamics and the principle of least action. Organisms are conglomerates of information bearing cells that optimise the efficiency of energy (nutrient) extraction from its ecosystem. Dissipative processes, such as pe...

The sequencing of the human genome raises two intriguing questions: why has the prediction of the inheritance of common diseases from the presence of abnormal alleles proved so unrewarding in most cases and how can some 25 000 genes generate such a rich complexity evident in the human phenotype? It is proposed that light can be shed on these questi...

I would like to take issue with Rithidech et al., authors of the paper entitled "Lack of genomic instability in mice at low doses" [1] who claim to have shown that their results on the measurement of late occurring chromosome aberrations after irradiation of SCID mice with X-rays show that lower doses (0.05 Gy) do not induce genomic instability. Th...

The organised state of living cells must derive from information internal to the system; however, there are strong reasons, based on sound evidence, to reject the base sequence information encoded in the genomic DNA as being directly relevant to the regulation of cellular phenotype. Rather, it is argued here that highly specific relational informat...

Cellular life can be viewed as one of many physical natural systems that extract free energy from their environments in the most efficient way, according to fundamental physical laws, and grow until limited by inherent physical constraints. Thus, it can be inferred that it is the efficiency of this process that natural selection acts upon. The cons...

Radiation-induced genomic instability is a modification of the cell genome found in the progeny of irradiated somatic and germ cells but that is not confined on the initial radiation-induced damage and may occur de novo many generations after irradiation. Genomic instability in the germ line does not follow Mendelian segregation and may have unpred...

Radiation-induced genomic instability has been well documented, particularly in vitro. However, the understanding of its mechanisms and their consequences in vivo is still limited. In this study, Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans; strain CB665) nematodes were exposed to X-rays at doses of 0.1, 1, 3 or 10Gy. The endpoints were measured several gene...

Two models for mammalian cell regulation that invoke the concept of cellular phenotype represented by high dimensional dynamic attractor states are compared. In one model the attractors are derived from an experimentally determined genetic regulatory network (GRN) for the cell type. As the state space architecture within which the attractors are em...

Lessons have not been learnt and the full public health implications are unknown

γ-Irradiated glasses of methyltetrahydrofuran at 77 °K exhibit photoconductivity on illumination with visible light. A variety of kinetic effects are observed as the wavelength of the exciting light is changed from blue to the near infrared. It is suggested that, due to the coulombic field of the positive ions in the glass, some electrons can be re...

This paper explores some of the basic considerations entailed in a system approach to radiobiology, which, in contrast to the traditional molecular approach, focuses on the processes that bring about change to the state of the system, in the case of the cell its phenotype. Radiation can be seen as ‘stressing’ these processes leading to phenotypic t...

The traditionally accepted biological basis for the late stochastic effects of ionizing radiation (cancer and hereditary disease), i.e. target theory, has so far been unable to accommodate the more recent findings of non-cancer disease and the so-called non-targeted effects, genomic instability and bystander effect, thus creating uncertainty in rad...

The full text of the obituary is given in the PDF file.

This paper briefly reviews the highlights of experimental evidence that led to the adoption of the term "non-targeted" to describe new effects induced by ionising radiation that did not fit the classical radiobiological paradigm, principally genomic instability and bystander effect, identifying the reports that were most influential on the subseque...

Over the past 20 or so years experimental evidence, which questions the fundamentals of some 50 years standing, of both biology and radiobiology has accrued. In order to accommodate this new evidence within a framework that encompasses existing knowledge, attention has to be paid to the organisational or epigenetic, features of the cell. In recent...

The IAEA has laid down nine principles of radioactive waste management [1], the first of which covers the protection of human health and demands that radioactive waste will be managed in such a way as to provide an acceptable level of protection. The fourth principle demands that future generations are protected in terms of the level of predicted i...

Understanding how mammalian cells are regulated epigenetically to express phenotype is a priority. The cellular phenotypic transition, induced by ionising radiation, from a normal cell to the genomic instability phenotype, where the ability to replicate the genotype accurately is compromised, illustrates important features of epigenetic regulation....

Background: The Chernobyl accident in 1986 caused widespread radioactive contamination and enormous concern. Twenty years later, the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Authority issued a generally reassuring statement about the consequences. Accurate assessment of the consequences is important to the current debate on nu...

Twenty years ago, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl exposed hundreds of thousands of people to radioactive fallout. We still have much to learn about its consequences, argue Dillwyn Williams and Keith Baverstock.

The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) has become embroiled in a major dispute over its attitude to and use of science. The nuclear industry in particular has been under relentless attack over scientific issues from antagonists. The high-level liquid waste and spent nuclear fuel stored at various locations pose an avoidable security...

Editor—We have professional interests in the public health impact of ionising radiation, the assessment and management of risk, and the development of policy. After more than a year as members of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) one of us (KB) was sacked and the other driven to resign because of the committee's wayward modus op...

The UK Committee on Radioactive Waste Management is charged with recommending to Government, by July 2006, options for the long term management of the UK's radioactive waste legacy. These options should inspire public confidence. Now, more than halfway into the time allotted, we, as two former members of the Committee, express our concerns at the w...

Although, in retrospect, it can be seen that the bystander effect and the related effect of genomic instability were observed well before they were recognized as such, they have not been able to be accommodated within the existing understanding of how radiation causes late effects, which provides the basis for radiological protection standards. It...

The roles of science, ethics and politics are identified in respect of the risks of exposure to low-dose radiation. Two case studies, the epidemiology of the United Kingdom nuclear test veterans and the risks to civilians associated with the military use of depleted uranium, are considered in the context of their ethical framing, scientific evaluat...

The long-term impact of the Chernobyl accident on the most affected populations in Belarus, Ukraine and the Russian Federation is still evident in terms of a continuing elevated level of thyroid cancer, prominent psychosocial effects, a depressed economy and a low level of well being. Some of these impacts are directly and primarily attributable to...

The presently available evidence about the magnitude of doses received by members of the public living in villages in the vicinity of Semipalatinsk nuclear test in Kazakhstan, particularly with respect to external radiation, while preliminary, is conflicting. The village of Dolon, in particular, has been identified for many years as the most highly...

The dramatic rise in the incidence of thyroid cancer in those exposed as children to fallout from the Chernobyl accident ([1][1]–[3][2]) has led to other possible health consequences being largely ignored. Recent data highlight the uncertainty in whole-body dose assessment, raise the possibility

Dear Sir Shrader-Frechette and Persson [1] are to be congratulated in so clearly exposing some of the ethical, logical and scientific difficulties in the most recent proposals for a reformulation of the radiological protection framework proposed by the ICRP. I would like to add one further point and some comments on the situation regarding the radi...

In December 1999, WHO issued an update to their guidelines on the use of stable iodine as a prophylactic measure to protect the thyroid gland from radioiodine, issued in 1989. The present paper explains the need for the update and discusses how the revised recommendations are implemented in practice.

The existing paradigm governing radiobiology which is fundamental to the estimation of environmental radiation risk, cannot explain the phenomena of radiation induced genomic instability and the bystander effect. Both effects can, however, be understood in terms of the dynamical genome concept, qualitatively described herein. The dynamical genome c...

Recent laboratory studies of endpoints designated as due to radiation-induced genomic instability have cast doubt on the validity of the current theoretical framework. Under this framework extrapolations are made from directly determined risks of radiation-induced cancer to those circumstances for which no direct information exists, namely at low d...

Informed consent is an unavoidably complicated issue T he issue of informed consent within medical practice, research, and publication is coming increasingly to the fore as the balance of power in the doctor-patient relationship tips towards patients. Last week Britain's General Medical Council heard a case in which a paediatric cardiologist was ac...

Ten years after the Chernobyl nuclear plant catastrophe more than 500 children in Belarus are suffering from thyroid cancer. The major cause of the high incidence of thyroid cancer in children under 15 years of age appears to be contamination resulting from that catastrophe, mainly with isotopes of radioactive iodine. Another important factor may b...

Insofar as international conferences reflect the state of development of the subject under discussion, they provide an opportunity to question, at a rather fundamental level, the direction of and progress in the subject. With regard to the effects of radiation on health, many of the problems faced today, including uncertainties in the relationship...

Insofar as international conferences reflect the state of development of the subject under discussion, they provide an opportunity to question, at a rather fundamental level, the direction of and progress in the subject. With regard to the effects of radiation on health, many of the problems faced today, including uncertainties in the relationship...

Rongelap Island was the home of Marshallese people numbering less than 120 in 1954; 67 were on the island and severely exposed to radioactive fallout from an atomic weapons test in March of that year. Those resident on Rongelap were evacuated 50 h after the test, returned 3 y later, then voluntarily left their home island in 1985 due to their ongoi...

As a consequence of the U.S. Atomic Weapons Testing Program in the Trust Territory of the Pacific, now the Republic of the Marshall Islands, numerous scientists have advised the Marshallese on matters of radiation and radioactive contamination. Some of the previous advice has appeared to vary or conflict resulting in consequent uncertainty for the...

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EDITOR,—We wish to report on a meeting of scientists from the three countries most closely affected by the accident at Chernobyl and from the World Health Organisation to review the programme of screening for and diagnosis of childhood thyroid cancer undertaken since the accident in April 1986. While the central purpose of the screening programme w...

The accident to the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in the Ukraine in April 1986 led to the exposure of substantial populations in northern Ukraine and southern Belarus to radioactive fallout. Recently increases in the incidence of childhood thyroid cancer have been reported from these areas. The possible causal association between exposure to the iso...

The conventional treatments of mechanisms of excitation energy in DNA indicate ranges of only a few tens of base pairs at most in the triplet maniford, in agreement with experimental data from photochemical systems with activation of the lowest excited states of base moieties. This is because delocalization of excited electronic states is essential...

The chemical instability of DNA under physiological conditions requires that cells have highly developed processes for repairing stochastic single-strand damage. It is proposed here that provided ionizing-radiation-induced single-strand damage does not occur at a rate sufficient to perturb the dynamic steady state between degradation and repair, it...

Non-linear effects which arise from the coupling of anharmonic interactions can completely change excitation transport through molecular chains. The consequences of this for an understanding of the effect of ionising radiation on DNA are discussed. We consider that these effects should be taken into account in the interpretation of experimental dat...

Non-linear effects which arise from the coupling of anharmonic interactions can completely change excitation transport through molecular chains. The consequences of this for an understanding of the effect of ionising radiation on DNA are discussed. We consider that these effects should be taken into account in the interpretation of experimental dat...

The yields of radiation-induced strand breaks measured in a plasmid DNA irradiated as a 'dry film' are similar to those measured in SV40 DNA irradiated in a cellular environment (Roots et al. 1985). This suggests a common mechanism, namely direct excitation of the DNA rather than indirectly inflicted damage from radiation-induced water radicals. Th...

The excess of leukaemia among young people living in the vicinity of the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield has focused attention on the possibility that irradiation of the lymphatic system from particulate alpha-emitting nuclides might be responsible. We discuss below two possible routes of such exposure; namely the inhalation and inges...

Experimental data on strand breakage in DNA following the direct deposition of ionizing energy seem to require an explanation in terms of long-range energy transfer within the DNA duplex. It is proposed here that the mechanism underlying such energy transfer might involve solitons or solitary waves. These act, at one and the same time, to provide a...

The meeting revealed the very considerable body of knowledge which is available concerning leukaemogenesis in general and radiation leukaemogenesis in particular. Nevertheless, this knowledge serves more to reveal our ignorance than to allow us to make definitive statements on the potential of low alpha-particle doses for inducing various leukaemia...

The accident with the nuclear power reactor at Chernobyl in the USSR resulted in the release of substantial quantities of radioactive material and subsequent increases in radioactivity in the environment in many countries. In this paper the situation in the UK is considered and, from the preliminary monitoring measurements, the major routes of expo...

A model for cancer induction in man exposed to low doses of radiation and based on the analysis of a survey of workers from a nuclear fuel processing plant is examined and compared with that adopted by the ICRP to limit risks to radiation workers. It is shown that claims that ICRP has significantly underestimated the risk apply primarily to those e...

Evidence concerning the sensitivity of man to bone marrow failure following exposure to brief but substantial doses of ionising radiation is sparse. There is, however, a relatively substantial body of information on such effects in large animals. Reported experiments on six species where exposure to low LET radiation was uniform to the whole body a...