Introduced by John Maddox
' Is a living cell just a bag of molecules and genes? Is there some global controller that prevents the cell blowing up? How can it be that 2,000 different chemical reactions can go on inside the cell without a mess being made? The answer to those questions turns out to be alarmingly simple. There is nooverall controlling element.'
With this set of questions, the Cambridge molecular biologist Dr Sydney Brenner characterises what he sees as the crucial question in science - oan we understand the complexity of living things? Editor DAVID PATERSON (Revised repeat) (Blueprints in the Bloodstream: Horizon BBC2 Fridau 9.30 pm)