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From: tbd@neuro (Tristan Davies)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: C. elegans
Message-ID: <22464@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Date: 29 Jun 91 16:57:13 GMT
References: <51261@ut-emx.uucp> <22455@duke.cs.duke.edu> <1991Jun28.130653.9301@lgc.com>
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In article <1991Jun28.130653.9301@lgc.com> cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird) writes:
>			.
>... and a big part of the idea was to undertake
>this with an eye toward the developmental biology.
>The C. elegans workers not only have elucidated
>the wiring of the nervous system, but also how
>that nervous system grows within the individual,
>from its beginning as a single cell.  The molecular
>biologists joined the party next, I think, so that
>now there are intensive efforts on structure and
>function at all (?) levels.
>--

Not to beat a dead horse (um, worm?), but...

It strikes me that this "attack on all fronts" approach is much
more likely to yield fruit than a "let's use high technology
to study just one thing" approach, especially if everyone
communicates with each other. That way, the cell biologists
can ask the molecular biologists what might be causing a mutation
or regulating a process, and the mol-biologists can concentrate
their efforts in an area where results will be immediately
useful.

Again, I think this is what tends to happen in the research
on C. elegans (as pointed out in the above quotation from
Cameron Laird), which is why research on this animal
continues unabated even though much of current research
in neurobiology is moving towards vertebrates.

Hmm...maybe this discussion should be continued in bionet.neuroscience?

Cheers,

Tristan "I wish *I* had 302 neurons!" Davies



e-mail: tbd@neuro.duke.edu
Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center

"grblb blabt unt mipt speeb!! oot piffoo blaboo..." -- Opus