The Building Wave: A Conversation with Biochemist and Systems Biologist Orion Weiner
Orion Weiner
Greek mythology doesn't tell us much about Orion, the hero whom Zeus tossed into the heavens as a constellation. We do know that he was a hunter. And so is his namesake, UCSF biochemist Orion Weiner, PhD. This latter-day Orion does not hunt deer or lions, though. He hunts cells or, more accurately, the guidance systems and circuits that make cells move toward specific destinations.
Most people understand, for example, that it is not the cancer tumor that kills, but the migration of its malignant cells to other organs or regions of the body.
Most people also realize that the cells of our immune system have to travel long distances to find their prey, a trek that requires clever codes and recognition systems.
In each case, much can go wrong — often with dire consequences.
So it is with surprise and glee that Weiner and his colleagues reported in the summer of 2007 that they had serendipitously discovered that white blood cells move toward their targeted invader because signaling proteins, churned into a wave machine, propel them forward. Indeed, the researchers were even able to capture the wave motion on video.
What does this mean? Well, knowing how cells move suggests ways to stop them when the movement — such as metastasizing cancer cells — is deadly. But perhaps even more important, Weiner's discovery is yet another validation that systems biology, which takes its cues as much from engineering as it does from biology, is truly the wave of the future.
As that wave builds, science and human health research will never be the same again.
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Related Links
- Weiner Lab
- Bursts of Waves Drive Immune System "Soldiers" Toward Invaders
- UCSF News Release, Aug. 13, 2007