FOREWORD
I hope sincerely that the book “Cell and Cell Division”, kindly offered
to your attention, will rouse interest in many readers, mostly
biologists, cytologists, geneticists, biochemists, scientists, students,
and others. Grounds for this give its subjects as a whole. The book is
well arranged, the topics are logically connected and the ideas, which
the author has considered, are set out and examined from
evolutionary and historical point of view representing their
development in the nature and the human knowledge of them.
In this way the book presents a generalized scientific notion
about the conditions and prerequisites which have brought about the
emergence of living matter, its formation, evolution and development
in cellular structures, i.e. cells – the basic structural and functional
biological units from which, via integration, multicellular organisms
were developed. Besides, an explanation is given how multicellular
organisms can be reproduced by means of cloning of single
vegetative cells, grown in tissue and cellular cultures. Since the
question about life’s origin and its existence is of exceptional interest
the author has searched for an answer in the results from the
researches on coacewate drops, the experiments on abiogenic
synthesis of organic compounds in laboratory conditions, the more
essential finds of fossils in the earth layers, the space flights in the
Solar system, and the possibility of its conveyance by other celestial
bodies.
Great attention is paid to the basic components which take part in
the construction and functioning of cells, transference of hereditary
traits to the next generations, cellular organelles, mutation changes,
endosymbiotic organization of eukaryotic cells, biological aging and
neoplasms, cloning, and others.
Special attention is paid to the cell division as a mechanism for
self-reproduction of cells and for ensuring the succession in living
organisms existence. The key to elucidation of this problem has been
sought in revealing the modes of its realization at a time. In this
respect a contribution of the author is the established by him
asynchronous nuclear and cell division as natural biological process,
which until recently were thought to be “exceptions” or “unusual”
phenomena contradicting the generally accepted rule of synchronous
division
Along with the many remarkable discoveries, presented in
objective way, and great achievements in biology and genetics, the
author has brought up a lot of intricate and tangled questions in this
field of the human knowledge. He has sought for answers to some of
them and given his own opinions which differ from the widely
accepted and prevalent ones. This approach in searching for
scientific truth deserves approval because it rouses thoughts which
could help its elucidation.
A. Mehandjiev