Life Unfolding: How the human body creates itself

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Jamie A. Davies (Professor of Experimental Anatomy, Professor of Experimental Anatomy, University of Edinburgh)

Life Unfolding

How the human body creates itself

Jamie A. Davies (Professor of Experimental Anatomy, Professor of Experimental Anatomy, University of Edinburgh)

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English

Oxford University Press
05 November 2015

Mathematics & Sciences; Popular science; Biology, life sciences; Developmental biology

Where did I come from? Why do I have two arms but just one head? How is my left leg the same size as my right one? Why are the fingerprints of identical twins not identical? How did my brain learn to learn? Why must I die? Questions like these remain biology's deepest and most ancient challenges. They force us to confront a fundamental biological problem: how can something as large and complex as a human body organize itself from the simplicity of a fertilized egg? A convergence of ideas from embryology, genetics, physics, networks, and control theory has begun to provide real answers. Based on the central principle of 'adaptive self-organization', it explains how the interactions of many cells, and of the tiny molecular machines that run them, can organize tissue structures vastly larger than themselves, correcting errors as they go along and creating new layers of complexity where there were none before. Life Unfolding tells the story of human development from egg to adult, from this perspective, showing how our whole understanding of how we come to be has been transformed in recent years. Highlighting how embryological knowledge is being used to understand why bodies age and fail, Jamie A. Davies explores the profound and fascinating impacts of our newfound knowledge.

By: Jamie A. Davies (Professor of Experimental Anatomy Professor of Experimental Anatomy University of Edinburgh)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 197mm, Width: 133mm, Spine: 19mm
Weight: 240g
ISBN: 9780199673544
ISBN 10: 0199673543
Pages: 312
Publication Date: 05 November 2015
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgements Ethical Statement Introduction 1: Confronting an alien technology 2: From one cell to many 3: Making a difference 4: Laying down a body plan 5: Beginning a brain 6: Long division 7: Fateful conversations 8: Great migrations 9: Plumbing 10: Organizing organs 11: Taking up arms 12: The Y and how 13: Wired 14: Dying to be human 15: Making your mind up 16: A sense of proportion 17: Making friends and facing enemies 18: Maintenance mode 19: Perspectives Glossary Further reading References

Since 1995, Jamie A. Davies has run his own laboratory at the University of Edinburgh, with a multi-disciplinary focus on discovering how mammalian organs construct themselves and how we can use this knowledge to build new tissues and organs for those in need. He has published around 90 research papers in the field of mammalian development, published a major specialist monograph (Mechanisms of Morphogenesis, Associated Press, 2005), and edited three multi-author books in the fields of development, stem cells, and tissue engineering. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Biologists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Fellow of the HIgher Education Academy. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Organogenesis.