Remote gene transmission: research of the scientist Alexander Gurvich

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the late spring of 1906, Alexander Gavrilovich Gurvich, in his mid-thirties already a well-known scientist, was demobilized from the army. During the war with Japan, he served as a doctor in the rear regiment stationed in Chernigov. (It was there that Gurvich, in his own words, "fleeing from forced idleness", wrote and illustrated "Atlas and essay on embryology of vertebrates", which was published in three languages in the next three years).

Now he is leaving with his young wife and little daughter for the whole summer to Rostov the Great - to his wife's parents. He has no job, and he still does not know whether he will stay in Russia or will go abroad again.

Behind the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Munich, thesis defense, Strasbourg and the University of Bern. The young Russian scientist is already familiar with many European biologists, his experiments are highly appreciated by Hans Driesch and Wilhelm Roux. And now - three months of complete isolation from scientific work and contacts with colleagues.

This summer A. G. Gurvich reflects on the question, which he himself formulated as follows: "What does it mean that I call myself a biologist, and what, in fact, I want to know?" Then, considering the thoroughly studied and illustrated process of spermatogenesis, he comes to the conclusion that the essence of the manifestation of living things consists in the connections between separate events that occur synchronously. This determined his "angle of view" in biology.

The printed heritage of A. G. Gurvich - more than 150 scientific papers. Most of them were published in German, French and English, which were owned by Alexander Gavrilovich. His work left a bright mark in embryology, cytology, histology, histophysiology, general biology. But perhaps it would be correct to say that "the main direction of his creative activity was the philosophy of biology" (from the book "Alexander Gavrilovich Gurvich. (1874-1954)". Moscow: Nauka, 1970).

A. G. Gurvich in 1912 was the first to introduce the concept of "field" into biology. The development of the biological field concept was the main theme of his work and lasted for more than one decade. During this time, Gurvich's views on the nature of the biological field have undergone profound changes, but they always talked about the field as a single factor that determines the direction and orderliness of biological processes.

Needless to say, what a sad fate awaited this concept in the next half century. There was a lot of speculation, the authors of which claimed to have comprehended the physical nature of the so-called "biofield", someone immediately undertook to treat people. Some referred to A. G. Gurvich, without bothering at all with attempts to delve into the meaning of his work. The majority did not know about Gurvich and, fortunately, did not refer to it, since neither to the term "biofield" itself, nor to various explanations of its action by A. G. Gurvich has nothing to do with it. Nevertheless, today the words "biological field" cause undisguised skepticism among educated interlocutors. One of the goals of this article is to tell readers the true story of the idea of a biological field in science.

What moves cells

A. G. Gurvich was not satisfied with the state of theoretical biology at the beginning of the 20th century. He was not attracted by the possibilities of formal genetics, since he was aware that the problem of the "transmission of heredity" is fundamentally different from the problem of the "implementation" of traits in the body.

Perhaps the main task of biology to this day is the search for an answer to the "childish" question: how from a microscopic ball of a single cell living beings in all their diversity arise? Why do dividing cells form not shapeless lumpy colonies, but complex and perfect structures of organs and tissues? In the mechanics of development of that time, the causal-analytical approach proposed by W. Ru was adopted: the development of the embryo is determined by a multitude of rigid cause-and-effect relationships. But this approach did not agree with the results of the experiments of G. Driesch, who proved that experimentally caused sharp deviations may not interfere with successful development. At the same time, individual parts of the body are not formed at all from those structures that are normal - but they are formed! In the same way, in Gurvich's own experiments, even with intensive centrifugation of amphibian eggs, violating their visible structure, further development proceeded equifinally - that is, it ended in the same way as in intact eggs.

Rice. 1 Figures A. G. Gurvich from 1914 - schematic images of cell layers in the neural tube of a shark embryo. 1 - initial formation configuration (A), subsequent configuration (B) (bold line - observed shape, dashed - assumed), 2 - initial (C) and observed configuration (D), 3 - initial (E), predicted (F) … Perpendicular lines show the long axes of the cells - "if you build a curve perpendicular to the cell axes at a given moment of development, you can see that it will coincide with the contour of a later stage of development of this area"

A. G. Gurvich conducted a statistical study of mitoses (cell divisions) in symmetrical parts of the developing embryo or individual organs and substantiated the concept of a "normalizing factor", from which the concept of a field later arose. Gurvich established that a single factor controls the overall picture of the distribution of mitoses in parts of the embryo, without at all determining the exact time and location of each of them. Undoubtedly, the premise of field theory was contained in the famous Driesch formula "the prospective fate of an element is determined by its position as a whole." The combination of this idea with the principle of normalization leads Gurvich to an understanding of orderliness in the living as the "subordination" of elements to a single whole - as opposed to their "interaction". In his work "Heredity as a Process of Realization" (1912), he for the first time develops the concept of the embryonic field - the morph. In fact, it was a proposal to break the vicious circle: to explain the emergence of heterogeneity among initially homogeneous elements as a function of the position of the element in the spatial coordinates of the whole.

After that, Gurvich began to look for a formulation of the law describing the movement of cells in the process of morphogenesis. He found that during the development of the brain in shark embryos, “the long axes of the cells of the inner layer of the neural epithelium were oriented at any given time not perpendicular to the surface of the formation, but at a certain (15-20 ') angle to it. The orientation of the angles is natural: if you construct a curve perpendicular to the cell axes at a given moment of development, you can see that it will coincide with the contour of a later stage in the development of this area”(Fig. 1). It seemed that the cells "know" where to lean, where to stretch to build the desired shape.

To explain these observations, A. G. Gurvich introduced the concept of a "force surface" that coincides with the contour of the final surface of the rudiment and guides the movement of cells. However, Gurvich himself was aware of the imperfection of this hypothesis. In addition to the complexity of the mathematical form, he was not satisfied with the “teleology” of the concept (it seemed to subordinate the movement of cells to a non-existent, future form). In the subsequent work "On the concept of embryonic fields" (1922) "the final configuration of the rudiment is considered not as an attractive force surface, but as the equipotential surface of the field emanating from point sources." In the same work, the concept of "morphogenetic field" was introduced for the first time.

The question was posed by Gurvich so broadly and exhaustively that any theory of morphogenesis that may arise in the future will, in essence, be just another kind of field theory.

L. V. Belousov, 1970

Biogenic ultraviolet

“The foundations and roots of the problem of mitogenesis were laid in my never-waning interest in the miraculous phenomenon of karyokinesis (this is how mitosis was called back in the middle of the last century. - Ed. Note),” wrote A. G. Gurvich in 1941 in his autobiographical notes."Mitogenesis" - a working term that was born in the laboratory of Gurvich and soon came into general use, is equivalent to the concept of "mitogenetic radiation" - very weak ultraviolet radiation of animal and plant tissues, stimulating the process of cell division (mitosis).

A. G. Gurvich came to the conclusion that it is necessary to consider mitoses in a living object not as isolated events, but in aggregate, as something coordinated - whether it is strictly organized mitoses of the first phases of egg cleavage or seemingly random mitoses in the tissues of an adult animal or plant. Gurvich believed that only the recognition of the integrity of the organism would make it possible to combine the processes of the molecular and cellular levels with the topographic features of the distribution of mitoses.

Since the beginning of the 1920s A. G. Gurvich considered various possibilities of external influences stimulating mitosis. In his field of vision was the concept of plant hormones, developed at that time by the German botanist G. Haberlandt. (He put a slurry of crushed cells on plant tissue and observed how tissue cells begin to divide more actively.) But it was not clear why the chemical signal does not affect all cells in the same way, why, say, small cells divide more often than large ones. Gurvich suggested that the whole point is in the structure of the cell surface: perhaps, in young cells, the surface elements are organized in a special way, favorable for the perception of signals, and as the cell grows, this organization is disrupted. (Of course, there was no concept of hormone receptors at that time.)

However, if this assumption is correct and the spatial distribution of some elements is important for the perception of the signal, the assumption suggests itself that the signal may not be chemical, but physical in nature: for example, radiation affecting some structures of the cell surface is resonant. These considerations were ultimately confirmed in an experiment that later became widely known.

Rice. 2 Induction of mitosis at the tip of the onion root (drawing from the work "Das Problem der Zellteilung physiologisch betrachtet", Berlin, 1926). Explanations in the text

Here is a description of this experiment, which was performed in 1923 at the Crimean University. “The emitting root (inductor), connected to the bulb, was strengthened horizontally, and its tip was directed to the meristem zone (that is, to the zone of cell proliferation, in this case also located near the root tip. - Ed. Note) of the second similar root (detector) fixed vertically. The distance between the roots was 2–3 mm”(Fig. 2). At the end of the exposure, the perceiving root was precisely marked, fixed, and cut into a series of longitudinal sections running parallel to the medial plane. Sections were examined under a microscope and the number of mitoses was counted on the irradiated and control sides.

At that time it was already known that the discrepancy between the number of mitoses (usually 1000-2000) in both halves of the root tip does not normally exceed 3-5%. Thus, "a significant, systematic, sharply limited preponderance in the number of mitoses" in the central zone of the perceiving root - and this is what the researchers saw on the sections - indisputably testified to the influence of an external factor. Something emanating from the tip of the inductor root forced the cells of the detector root to divide more actively (Fig. 3).

Further research clearly showed that it was about radiation and not about volatile chemicals. The impact spread in the form of a narrow parallel beam - as soon as the inducing root was slightly deflected to the side, the effect disappeared. It also disappeared when a glass plate was placed between the roots. But if the plate was made of quartz, the effect persisted! This suggested that the radiation was ultraviolet. Later, its spectral boundaries were set more accurately - 190-330 nm, and the average intensity was estimated at the level of 300-1000 photons / s per square centimeter. In other words, the mitogenetic radiation discovered by Gurvich was medium and near ultraviolet of extremely low intensity. (According to modern data, the intensity is even lower - it is on the order of tens of photons / s per square centimeter.)

Rice. 3 Graphic representation of the effects of four experiments. The positive direction (above the abscissa axis) means the preponderance of mitosis on the irradiated side

A natural question: what about the ultraviolet of the solar spectrum, does it affect cell division? In experiments, such an effect was excluded: in the book by A. G. Gurvich and L. D. Gurvich "Mitogenetic radiation" (M., Medgiz, 1945), in the section of guidelines, it is clearly indicated that the windows during experiments should be closed, there should be no open fire and sources of electric sparks in laboratories. In addition, the experiments were necessarily accompanied by controls. However, it should be noted that the intensity of solar UV is significantly higher, therefore, its effect on living objects in nature, most likely, should be completely different.

Work on this topic became even more intensive after the transition of A. G. Gurvich in 1925 at Moscow University - he was unanimously elected head of the Department of Histology and Embryology of the Faculty of Medicine. Mitogenetic radiation was found in yeast and bacterial cells, cleaving eggs of sea urchins and amphibians, tissue cultures, cells of malignant tumors, nervous (including isolated axons) and muscular systems, blood of healthy organisms. As can be seen from the listing, non-fissionable tissues also emitted - let us remember this fact.

Development disorders of sea urchin larvae kept in sealed quartz vessels under the influence of prolonged mitogenetic radiation of bacterial cultures in the 30s of the XX century were studied by J. and M. Magrou at the Pasteur Institute. (Today, similar studies with fish and amphibian embryos are being carried out at the biofacies of Moscow State University by A. B. Burlakov.)

Another important question that researchers posed to themselves in those same years: how far does the action of radiation spread in living tissue? The reader will remember that in the experiment with onion roots, a local effect was observed. Is there, besides him, also long-range action? To establish this, model experiments were carried out: with local irradiation of long tubes filled with solutions of glucose, peptone, nucleic acids and other biomolecules, the radiation propagated through the tube. The propagation speed of the so-called secondary radiation was about 30 m / s, which confirmed the assumption about the radiative-chemical nature of the process. (In modern terms, biomolecules, absorbing UV photons, fluoresced, emitting a photon with a longer wavelength. Photons, in turn, gave rise to subsequent chemical transformations.) Indeed, in some experiments, radiation propagation was observed along the entire length of a biological object (for example, in the long roots of the same bow).

Gurvich and his co-workers also showed that the highly attenuated ultraviolet radiation of a physical source also promotes cell division in the onion roots, as does a biological inductor.

Our formulation of the basic property of a biological field does not represent in its content any analogies with fields known in physics (although, of course, it does not contradict them).

A. G. Gurvich. Principles of Analytical Biology and Cell Field Theory

Photons are conducting

Where does UV radiation come from in a living cell? A. G. Gurvich and colleagues in their experiments recorded the spectra of enzymatic and simple inorganic redox reactions. For some time, the question of the sources of mitogenetic radiation remained open. But in 1933, after the publication of the hypothesis of the photochemist V. Frankenburger, the situation with the origin of intracellular photons became clear. Frankenburger believed that the source of the appearance of high-energy ultraviolet quanta was rare acts of recombination of free radicals that occur during chemical and biochemical processes and, due to their rarity, did not affect the overall energy balance of reactions.

The energy released during the recombination of radicals is absorbed by the substrate molecules and is emitted with a spectrum characteristic of these molecules. This scheme was refined by N. N. Semyonov (future Nobel laureate) and in this form was included in all subsequent articles and monographs on mitogenesis. The modern study of the chemiluminescence of living systems has confirmed the correctness of these views, which are generally accepted today. Here's just one example: fluorescent protein studies.

Of course, various chemical bonds are absorbed in the protein, including peptide bonds - in the middle ultraviolet (most intensely - 190-220 nm). But for fluorescence studies, aromatic amino acids, especially tryptophan, are relevant. It has an absorption maximum at 280 nm, phenylalanine at 254 nm, and tyrosine at 274 nm. Absorbing ultraviolet quanta, these amino acids then emit them in the form of secondary radiation - naturally, with a longer wavelength, with a spectrum characteristic of a given state of the protein. Moreover, if at least one tryptophan residue is present in the protein, then only it will fluoresce - the energy absorbed by tyrosine and phenylalanine residues is redistributed to it. The fluorescence spectrum of the tryptophan residue strongly depends on the environment - whether the residue is, say, near the surface of the globule or inside, etc., and this spectrum varies in the 310-340 nm band.

A. G. Gurvich and his co-workers showed in model experiments on peptide synthesis that chain processes involving photons can lead to cleavage (photodissociation) or synthesis (photosynthesis). Photodissociation reactions are accompanied by radiation, while the processes of photosynthesis do not emit.

Now it became clear why all cells emit, but during mitosis - especially strongly. The process of mitosis is energy-intensive. Moreover, if in a growing cell the accumulation and expenditure of energy proceeds in parallel with the assimilative processes, then during mitosis the energy stored by the cell in the interphase is only consumed. There is a disintegration of complex intracellular structures (for example, the shell of the nucleus) and energy-consuming reversible creation of new ones - for example, chromatin supercoils.

A. G. Gurvich and his colleagues also carried out work on the registration of mitogenetic radiation using photon counters. In addition to the Gurvich laboratory at the Leningrad IEM, these studies are also in Leningrad, at the Phystech under A. F. Ioffe, led by G. M. Frank, together with physicists Yu. B. Khariton and S. F. Rodionov.

In the West, such prominent specialists as B. Raevsky and R. Oduber were engaged in the registration of mitogenetic radiation using photomultiplier tubes. We should also recall G. Barth, a student of the famous physicist W. Gerlach (founder of quantitative spectral analysis). Barth worked for two years in the laboratory of A. G. Gurvich and continued his research in Germany. He received reliable positive results working with biological and chemical sources, and in addition, made an important contribution to the methodology for detecting ultra-weak radiation. Barth performed preliminary sensitivity calibration and selection of photomultipliers. Today, this procedure is mandatory and routine for everyone who measures weak luminous fluxes. However, it was precisely the neglect of this and some other necessary requirements that did not allow a number of pre-war researchers to obtain convincing results.

Today, impressive data on the registration of superweak radiation from biological sources have been obtained at the International Institute of Biophysics (Germany) under the leadership of F. Popp. However, some of his opponents are skeptical about these works. They tend to believe that biophotons are metabolic by-products, a kind of light noise that has no biological meaning. “The emission of light is a completely natural and self-evident phenomenon that accompanies many chemical reactions,” emphasizes the physicist Rainer Ulbrich of the University of Göttingen. Biologist Gunther Rothe assesses the situation in the following way: “Biophotons exist without a doubt - today this is unambiguously confirmed by the highly sensitive devices that modern physics has at its disposal. As for Popp's interpretation (we are talking about the fact that chromosomes allegedly emit coherent photons. - Editor's note), this is a beautiful hypothesis, but the proposed experimental confirmation is still completely insufficient to recognize its validity. On the other hand, we must take into account that it is very difficult to obtain evidence in this case, because, firstly, the intensity of this photon radiation is very low, and secondly, the classical methods of detecting laser light used in physics are difficult to apply here."

Among biological works published from your country, nothing attracts the attention of the scientific world more than your work.

From a letter from Albrecht Bethe dated 1930-08-01 to A. G. Gurvich

Controlled disequilibrium

Regulatory phenomena in protoplasm A. G. Gurvich began to speculate after his early experiments in centrifuging fertilized eggs of amphibians and echinoderms. Almost 30 years later, when comprehending the results of mitogenetic experiments, this topic received a new impetus. Gurvich is convinced that the structural analysis of a material substrate (a set of biomolecules) that reacts to external influences, regardless of its functional state, is meaningless. A. G. Gurvich formulates the physiological theory of protoplasm. Its essence is that living systems have a specific molecular apparatus for energy storage, which is fundamentally nonequilibrium. In a generalized form, this is a fixation of the idea that an influx of energy is necessary for the body not only for growth or work, but primarily to maintain the state that we call alive.

The researchers drew attention to the fact that a burst of mitogenetic radiation was necessarily observed when the flow of energy was limited, which maintained a certain level of metabolism of the living system. (By "limiting the flow of energy" should be understood a decrease in the activity of enzymatic systems, suppression of various processes of transmembrane transport, a decrease in the level of synthesis and consumption of high-energy compounds - that is, any processes that provide the cell with energy - for example, with reversible cooling of an object or with mild anesthesia.) Gurvich formulated the concept of extremely labile molecular formations with an increased energy potential, nonequilibrium in nature and united by a common function. He called them non-equilibrium molecular constellations (NMCs).

A. G. Gurvich believed that it was the disintegration of NMC, the disruption of the organization of protoplasm, that caused a burst of radiation. Here he has a lot in common with the ideas of A. Szent-Györgyi about the migration of energy along the general energy levels of protein complexes. Similar ideas for substantiating the nature of "biophotonic" radiation are expressed today by F. Popp - he calls the migrating excitation regions "polaritons". From the point of view of physics, there is nothing unusual here. (Which of the currently known intracellular structures could be suitable for the role of NMC in Gurvich's theory - we will leave this intellectual exercise to the reader.)

It has also been shown experimentally that radiation also occurs when the substrate is mechanically influenced by centrifugation or the application of a weak voltage. This made it possible to say that NMC also possess spatial ordering, which was disturbed both by mechanical influence and by limitation of the flow of energy.

At first glance, it is noticeable that NMC, the existence of which depends on the influx of energy, are very similar to the dissipative structures that arise in thermodynamically nonequilibrium systems, which were discovered by the Nobel laureate I. R. Prigogine. However, anyone who has studied such structures (for example, the Belousov - Zhabotinsky reaction) knows very well that they are not reproduced absolutely exactly from experience to experience, although their general character is preserved. In addition, they are extremely sensitive to the slightest change in the parameters of a chemical reaction and external conditions. All this means that since living objects are also non-equilibrium formations, they cannot maintain the unique dynamic stability of their organization only due to the flow of energy. A single ordering factor of the system is also required. This factor A. G. Gurvich called it a biological field.

In a short summary, the final version of the biological (cellular) field theory looks like this. The field has a vector, not a force, character. (Remember: a force field is a region of space, at each point of which a certain force acts on a test object placed in it; for example, an electromagnetic field. A vector field is a region of space, at each point of which a certain vector is given, for example, the velocity vectors of particles in a moving fluid.) Molecules that are in an excited state and thus have an excess of energy fall under the action of the vector field. They acquire a new orientation, deform or move in the field not due to its energy (that is, not in the same way as it happens with a charged particle in an electromagnetic field), but spending their own potential energy. A significant part of this energy is converted into kinetic energy; when the excess energy is expended and the molecule returns to an unexcited state, the effect of the field on it ceases. As a result, spatio-temporal ordering is formed in the cellular field - NMC are formed, characterized by an increased energy potential.

In a simplified form, the following comparison can clarify this. If the molecules moving in the cell are cars, and their excess energy is gasoline, then the biological field forms the relief of the terrain on which the cars drive. Obeying the "relief", molecules with similar energy characteristics form NMC. They, as already mentioned, are united not only energetically, but also by a common function, and exist, firstly, due to the inflow of energy (cars cannot go without gasoline), and secondly, due to the ordering action of the biological field (off-road the car will not pass). Individual molecules constantly enter and leave the NMC, but the entire NMC remains stable until the value of the energy flow feeding it changes. With a decrease in its value, the NMC decomposes, and the energy stored in it is released.

Now, imagine that in a certain area of living tissue, the inflow of energy has decreased: the decay of NMC has become more intense, therefore, the intensity of radiation has increased, the very one that controls mitosis. Of course, mitogenetic radiation is closely related to the field - although it is not a part of it! As we remember, during decay (dissimilation), excess energy is emitted, which is not mobilized in the NMC and is not involved in the synthesis processes; precisely because in most cells the processes of assimilation and dissimilation occur simultaneously, although in different proportions, the cells have a characteristic mitogenetic regime. The same is the case with energy flows: the field does not directly affect their intensity, but, forming a spatial "relief", can effectively regulate their direction and distribution.

A. G. Gurvich worked on the final version of the field theory during the difficult war years. "Theory of the biological field" was published in 1944 (Moscow: Soviet Science) and in the subsequent edition in French - in 1947. The theory of cellular biological fields has caused criticism and misunderstanding even among the supporters of the previous concept. Their main reproach was that Gurvich allegedly abandoned the idea of the whole, and returned to the principle of interaction of individual elements (that is, the fields of individual cells), which he himself rejected. In the article "The concept of the" whole "in the light of the theory of the cellular field" (Collection "Works on mitogenesis and the theory of biological fields." Gurvich shows that this is not the case. Since the fields generated by individual cells extend beyond their limits, and the field vectors are summed at any point in space according to the rules of geometric addition, the new concept substantiates the concept of an “actual” field. It is, in fact, a dynamic integral field of all cells of an organ (or organism), changing over time and possessing the properties of a whole.

Since 1948, the scientific activity of A. G. Gurvich is forced to concentrate mainly in the theoretical sphere. After the August session of the All-Union Agricultural Academy, he did not see the opportunity to continue working at the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences (the director of which he had been since the institute was founded in 1945) and in early September applied to the Presidium of the Academy for retirement. In the last years of his life, he wrote many works on various aspects of biological field theory, theoretical biology and biological research methodology. Gurvich considered these works as chapters of a single book, which was published in 1991 under the title "Principles of Analytical Biology and Theory of Cell Fields" (Moscow: Nauka).

The very existence of a living system is, strictly speaking, the most profound problem, in comparison with which its functioning remains or should remain in the shadows.

A. G. Gurvich. Histological foundations of biology. Jena, 1930 (in German)

Empathy without understanding

The works of A. G. Gurvich on mitogenesis before World War II were very popular both in our country and abroad. In the laboratory of Gurvich, the processes of carcinogenesis were actively studied, in particular, it was shown that the blood of cancer patients, unlike the blood of healthy people, is not a source of mitogenetic radiation. In 1940 A. G. Gurvich was awarded the State Prize for his work on the mitogenetic study of the problem of cancer. Gurvich's "field" concepts never enjoyed wide popularity, although they invariably aroused keen interest. But this interest in his work and reports has often remained superficial. A. A. Lyubishchev, who always called himself a student of A. G. Gurvich, described this attitude as "sympathy without understanding."

In our time, sympathy has been replaced by hostility. A significant contribution to discrediting the ideas of A. G. Gurvich was introduced by some would-be followers who interpreted the scientist's thoughts "according to their own understanding." But the main thing is not even that. Gurvich's ideas found themselves on the sidelines of the path taken by "orthodox" biology. After the discovery of the double helix, new and alluring perspectives appeared before researchers. The chain "gene - protein - sign" attracted by its concreteness, seeming ease of obtaining a result. Naturally, molecular biology, molecular genetics, biochemistry became mainstreams, and non-genetic and non-enzymatic control processes in living systems were gradually pushed to the periphery of science, and their very study began to be considered a dubious, frivolous occupation.

For modern physicochemical and molecular branches of biology, the understanding of integrity is alien, which A. G. Gurvich considered the fundamental property of living things. On the other hand, dismemberment is practically equated with the acquisition of new knowledge. Preference is given to research on the chemical side of phenomena. In the study of chromatin, the emphasis is shifted to the primary structure of DNA, and in it they prefer to see primarily a gene. Although the disequilibrium of biological processes is formally recognized, no one assigns it an important role: the overwhelming majority of works are aimed at distinguishing between "black" and "white", the presence or absence of protein, the activity or inactivity of a gene. (It is not for nothing that thermodynamics among students of biological universities is one of the most unloved and poorly perceived branches of physics.) What have we lost in half a century after Gurvich, how great are the losses - the answer will be prompted by the future of science.

Probably, biology has yet to assimilate ideas about the fundamental integrity and disequilibrium of living things, about a single ordering principle that ensures this integrity. And perhaps Gurvich's ideas are still ahead, and their history is just beginning.

O. G. Gavrish, candidate of biological sciences