Dear Kevin ---and FIS colleagues, Thanks a lot for the impressive work. My only pity is that the lack of sufficient time to work harder on your text ---and references. I much agree with the idea of looking in depth not only for quantum molecular processes in living cells, but for the implementation of quantum computing algorithms. It was well-known the occurrence of quantum tunneling and superconduction phenomena (eg, photosynthetic machinery, enzymes of the respiratory chain, actin-myosin complex...) but this "algorithmic" work of yours looks to me as a new type of proposal within the emerging field of microbial computing.
I have two brief concerns. One is about the absence of the cytoskekleton in the quantum computational (QC) scheme. For intuitive reasons, I believe that Ca gradients are too slow and unstable amidst the diffusion barriers intracellular and intercellularly to be the ONLY substrate for QC. I have also reminiscences on the high sophistication of the paramecium cytoskeleton (it was suggested as a "nervous system" by microbiologists in the 70's and 80's). The suggestion that perhaps some FISers who have worked in microtubule computation can bolster, is that the Calcium waves can "temperate" the QC performed within an ensemble of subcellular systems (microtubules included, plus the mechanosensitive channels you mention, the Ca governing chaperons, and mitochondria...). The second concern is about the microbial signaling system. Having worked with some depth in the Mycobacterium 1-2-3 component system, and superficially acknowledged with the amazing complexity of the quorum sensing, and even more taking into account that ciliates are possessing a very fine eukaryotic style Cellular Signalling System, I would like to know how the QC can be handled within the global scheme of Cellular Intelligence. I should put this question better, but I think that prokaryotic intelligence and primitive int. are important matters in your own views. One of the problems ---among many others--- in our yearly discussions on information is that the overall scheme of intelligence has not been addressed yet. It is merit of our Chinese colleagues (Zong-Rong and others) having entered it into the program of the coming FIS conference: the "Intelligence Science" paradigm. I am really sympathetic with this effort. Either in the cellular realm (like in this case) and in most other informational realms.... Thanks for the exciting occasion, Kevin. Pedro -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza. España / Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 [email protected] http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ fis mailing list [email protected] https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
