e-Books

Chapter 4 is of retrospective and perspective character. The aim is to
show how through integration of single cells multicellular organisms have
been formed, as well as how through cloning of separate somatic cells from
multicellular organisms developed in tissue and cell cultures many-cell
organisms can be reproduced.
The unclarified key problems in the study of the cell up to now such as
the pre-cell evolution, protein synthesis (especially in the early stages of life
emergence), the genetic code evolution, the problem of the relationships
between proteins and nucleic acids in the chromosomes, gene expression,
the causes for triggering or retention of cell division, molecular bases of
mutation changes and the in vivo organization of the cell organelles are
symbolically designated as “white spots” in biology. This is to show how far
from solving these problems we are at present though not in the least
intending to say that there are no intensive studies going on in these fields.
On some issues I have expressed opinions differing from the officially
accepted ones, sometimes unsupported by experimental data. This will
inevitably cause disapproval and disagreement by some readers,
predominantly experts in the given field. Although I place the experiment
above all, I admit that scientific knowledge can be supplemented by
speculative suppositions when it is based on solid logic in the interpretation
of the results obtained before. I do share the said of Albert Einstein that
“Science can progress on the basis of error as long as it is not trivial” (cited
by Koshland, 1988).
The problems in the book encompass a long historical period — from
ancient times till our day. Because of this, some of the early publications
with considerable contributions whose authors have acquired great publicity
are cited from the literature. Everything of course was subjected to most
precise scrutiny.
The book is designed for a broad range of readers — biologists,
cytologists, geneticists, biochemists, young scientists, students, etc. It
would also be of help to anyone interested in his/her origin, evolution and
position in nature. I would be very grateful for all objective and well-intended remarks.

Institute of Genetics, Sofia Nicolay Nicolov
September 1999