So Simple a Beginning: How Four Physical Principles Shape Our Living World

 Biophysicist Raghuveer Parthasarathy explains how four basic principles—self-assembly, regulatory circuits, predictable randomness and scaling—shape the structure and behaviour of biological systems, ranging from the protein molecules packing and gene activity to the fate of bacteria in the digestive community. These regularities underlie the entire diversity of living nature and allow the development of previously unimaginable biotechnologies. The author uses a wide range of examples, including viral DNA packaging, membrane construction, laying down the body plan in embryogenesis, organs-on-chips, genome editing, prion diseases and cystic fibrosis.

Raghuveer Parthasarathy. So Simple a Beginning: How Four Physical Principles Shape Our Living World / Translated from English by Zaur Mamedyarov; Editor Olga Volkova. - M.: CORPUS, 2024.