Getting gene expression “just right”
Paul C. Whitford · 2025
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Description
Paul Whitford, writing alone in 2025, reflects on how cells get gene expression just right amid molecular chaos. His essay moves across scales, from single molecules to communities, hunting the organizing principles that turn random events into robust life. Protein folding is the solved example: funnel-shaped energy landscapes explain how chains fold fast enough to matter.
Much of biology, though, runs on disorder. Shapeless molecules condense into droplets that compartmentalize the cell, and meter-long chromosomes pack into the nucleus yet stay nimble enough to switch genes on and off. Whitford discusses a theoretical model by Zhu and colleagues in the same journal that shows how the order-disorder balance can be struck. The essay frames that balance as the cell's core design problem, and its deepest remaining puzzle.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Paul C. Whitford |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 10 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |