Every cell is derived from another cell. Francois-Vincent Raspall
A cell has a history; its structure is inherited, it grows, divides, and, as in the embryo of higher animals, the products of division differentiate on complex lines. Living cells, moreover, transmit all that is involved in their complex heredity. I am far from maintaining that these fundamental properties may not depend upon organisation at levels above any chemical level; to understand them may even call for different methods of thought; I do not pretend to know. But if there be a hierarchy of levels we must recognise each one, and the physical and chemical level which, I would again say, may be the level of self-maintenance, must always have a place in any ultimate complete description. Frederick Gowland Hopkins
A cell of a higher organism contains a thousand different substances, arranged in a complex system. This great organized system was not discovered by chemical or physical methods; they are inadequate to its refinement and delicacy and complexity. Herbert Spencer Jennings
Every complete set of chromosomes contains the full code; so there are, as a rule, two copies of the latter in the fertilized egg cell, which forms the earliest stage of the future individual. In calling the structure of the chromosome fibres a code-script we mean that the all-penetrating mind, once conceived by Laplace, to which every causal connection lay immediately open, could tell from their structure whether the egg would develop, under suitable conditions, into a black cock or into a speckled hen, into a fly or a maize plant, a rhododendron, a beetle, a mouse or a woman. To which we may add, that the appearances of the egg cells are very often remarkably similar; and even when they are not, as in the case of the comparatively gigantic eggs of birds and reptiles, the difference is not so much in the relevant structures as in the nutritive material which in these cases is added for obvious reasons.
But the term code-script is, of course, too narrow. The chromosome structures are at the same time instrumental in bringing about the development they foreshadow. They are law-code and executive power, or to use another simile, they are architects plan and builder’s craft-in one. Erwin Schrödinger, What is Life?
Surely the mitochondrion that first entered another cell was not thinking about the future benefits of cooperation and integration; it was merely trying to make its own living in a tough Darwinian world. Stephen Jay Gould
There are living systems; there is no living matter. No substance, no single molecule, extracted and isolated from a living being possess, of its own, the aforementioned paradoxical properties. They are present in living systems only; that is to say, nowhere below the level of the cell. Jacques Monod
We may regard the cell quite apart from its familiar morphological aspects, and contemplate its constitution from the purely chemical standpoint. We are obliged to adopt the view, that the protoplasm is equipped with certain atomic groups, whose function especially consists in fixing to themselves food-stuffs, of importance to the cell-life. Adopting the nomenclature of organic chemistry, these groups may be designated side-chains. We may assume that the protoplasm consists of a special executive centre (Leistungs-centrum) in connection with which are nutritive side-chains ... The relationship of the corresponding groups i.e. those of the food-stuff, and those of the cell, must be specific. They must be adapted to one another as e.g. male and female screw (Pasteur), or as lock and key (E Fischer). Paul Ehrlich
The theory says that every time cells divide the tips of our chromosomes – called telomeres – become shorter. Eventually they become so short they stop our cells dividing. Horizon: Don’t Grow Old, BBC 2010
We are going to have to build an entirely new paradigm ... That new hope is stem-cells. Horizon: How to Mend a Broken Heart, Kevin Fong reporting, BBC 2011
It’s difficult to know precisely how the stem-cells worked. ibid.
It’s when the stem-cells are placed on the ghost heart that the potential for regeneration can be realised. ibid.
There’s something very different about this rain – its colour ... Rain the colour of blood. Unexplained Files, Discovery 2013
Could the red rain plague in Colombia, India and Sri Lanka actually contain blood? And if so, where would it come from? ibid.
These cells are replicating even though they have no DNA. ibid.
It targets white blood cells ... The RNA takes over and it hijacks the cell's ability to duplicate. Ebola Exposed, Discovery 2015
They have to replicate inside a cell. They can’t just grow if you give them growth medium like a bacterium could for instance. They have to find a particular cell they can enter and replicate in. Professor Geoffrey Smith
Masked cell activation syndrome: Bryn’s masked cells were producing too much histamine and causing inflammation when it wasn’t needed. Incredible Medicine: Dr Weston’s Casebook IV, BBC 2017
‘I have a sickle-cell disease but I’m not sick.’ … High levels of … a special type of haemoglobin. Incredible Medicine: Dr Weston’s Casebook V
Henrietta’s cells were different … [after death] they did not continue to die off … Each cell dividing every twenty hours … Human cells that appeared to be immortal. ibid.
I have devoted my life to the study of death. And do you know what I have found? Death is nothing more than the result of cellular boredom. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s5e25: In the Cards, Dr Giger
Much to our surprise we’ve seen some quite dramatic improvements in how people feel ... But interestingly with very little change in the pumping action of the heart. Professor Anthony Mathur, Barts & London stem cell trials
Stem cells have the potential to be used to treat and better understand some of the world’s most deadly and disabling diseases. Mark Udall
We’ve basically developed a way that lets us take a heart from a cadaver, drain all the cells, use the underlying scaffold, transplant your own cells back in, and re-build the beating heart. It’s amazing. Professor Doris A Taylor, University of Minnesota
The world of transplant may change as a result. Professor Doris A Taylor
Enter embryonic stem-cell research. Suddenly, this ‘life begins at the moment of conception’ business becomes the chief impediment to medical progress. Who would have thought that such an innocuous idea could unnecessarily prolong the agony of tens of millions of people? This is the problem with dogmatism, no matter how seemingly benign: it is unresponsive to reality. Dogmatism is a failure of cognition (as well as a commitment to such failure); it is the state of being closed to new evidence and new arguments. And this frame of mind is rightly despised in every area of culture, on every subject, except where it goes by the name of ‘religious faith’. In this guise, parading its most grotesque faults as virtues, it is granted a special dispensation, even in the pages of Nature. Sam Harris
A three-day-old human embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. There are, for the sake of comparison, more than 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly. The human embryos that are destroyed in stem-cell research do not have brains, or even neurons. Consequently, there is no reason to believe they can suffer their destruction in any way at all. It is worth remembered in this context, that when a person's brain has died, we currently deem it acceptable to harvest his organs (provided he has donated them for this purpose) and bury him in the ground. If it is acceptable to treat a person whose brain has died as something less than a human being, it should be acceptable to treat a blastocyst as such. If you are concerned about suffering in this universe, killing a fly should present you with greater moral difficulties than killing a human blastocyst. Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father’s funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem-cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer’s is concerned, we don’t have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective. Patti Davis
Embryonic stem-cell research will prolong life, improve life and give hope for life to millions of people. Jim Ramstad
Embryonic stem-cell research is at the leading edge of a series of moral hazards. George W Bush
I strongly oppose cloning, as do most Americans. We recoil at the idea of growing human beings for spare body parts or creating life for our convenience. And while we must devote enormous energy to conquering disease, it is equally important that we pay attention to the moral concerns raised by the new frontier of human embryo stem-cell research. Even the most noble ends do not justify any means. George W Bush
‘An experienced surgeon knows when to cut or not cut.’ Storyville: Fatal Experiments: Downfall of a Supersurgeon I, BBC 2016
This is Paolo Macchiarini, one of the world’s best surgeons in one of his most difficult moments. ibid.
One of Medicine’s greatest challenges: the lack of spare parts when something goes wrong inside our bodies … attempting to create the first windpipe out of plastic … Everything ended the same way: in death. ibid.
Is he a genius or is he a fraud? ibid.
End of 2014: Accused of falsifying research results and of gross misconduct. ibid.
‘They made misuse of the hype around stem cells to introduce something completely impossible.’ ibid. expert