Introduction:

Physics is the study of the universe in general, starting from atomic (or subatomic) particles going up to planetary system, galaxy etc; Chemistry studies combination of matter starting from molecules and the relationship between matter and energy. When both physics and chemistry are combined and ‘life’ is infused, there comes up biology.

If one goes through the creation story as described in the beginning of the Bible, we could get an idea about the inter-relationship between physics, chemistry, and biology. First light is created (Gen 1:3) which is physics, though even today we are not able to decide whether light is particle or wave! Then comes the dome called the Sky, which separates ‘the waters from the waters’ (Gen 1:6). Once water comes into the picture then life sets in, first vegetation (Gen 1:11); then living creatures (Gen 1:20); and finally human beings (Gen 1:27).  We see the importance of water in connecting physics and chemistry with biology. Physically water can be a solid, a liquid, or a gas; chemically it is labeled H₂O; and biologically water is the major component of every living being, not only to originate (along with light) but to sustain life. Water is the largest single constituent of all living plants, animals, and humans. 60% weight of a grown up adult or an animal is made up of water[1], while it could go up to 95% for plants.[2] Sunlight, air, and water are the basic ingredients of any living being.

Multidimensional Reality:

Has science said the final word about the universe or about life, in general? No. We are in the process of knowing that we do not know much. The more we discover the more we realize our limitation of understanding the universe. All facts and all natural laws have been there right from the beginning of time, but we take time to understand the grandeur of the reality. ‘How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?’ was a medieval speculation. But today, with nano-science we might, in our own way, could come closer to an understanding of reality.

The concept of the universe has undergone many a phase:

1. Initially Aristotle (384-322 BCE) proposed single dimensonal world view, through the so called ‘Correspondence Principle’. What we see here is the reflection of what is there above.
2. Euclid (323-285 BCE), often called the ‘father of geometry’, made it two dimensional: The world is flat as we could see on a plane.
3. After a long gap of thirteen centuries, Newton (1643-1727 ACE) came to enhance the world picture – He made it three-dimensional. He was instrumental in the scientific revolution. His laws, especially the laws of motion and the law of gravitation, still rules the world on a macro scale.
4. The world-view was fine tuned by Einstein (1879-1955 ACE), who proposed four-dimensional concept of the universe, adding time to the three-dimensional concept, known as space-time continuum.
5. The world picture seems to be still incomplete. Whatever be the reality, what exists is what one perceives! It is the consciousness that gives the fifth dimension to the reality. This becoming conscious of reality goes beyond the deterministic world of Newton as well as the relativistic world of Einstein. What is out there could be only a possibility of various probabilities, depending on one’s perception and understanding.

Hence, the perception of the world, physically or conceptually, is a possibility of probability. The perception, sensory or conceptual, of the observer is very fundamental in understanding the reality – All we have is the probability. We could cite one or two examples in the history of understanding the universe:

1. Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, in their book ‘The Grand Design’ point out how in the 1920s most physicists believed that the universe was static, or unchanging in size. Then, as late as 1929, Edwin Hubble published his observations indicating that the universe is expanding. His observation is amazing: He found that nearly all galaxies are moving away from us, and the farther away they are, the faster they are moving away.[3] This is the macro world.

2. In the microworld also the scientists have not said the final word: We have moved from the concept of indivisble atom, to consituent particles of atom, namely proton and neutron – But we are told now that proton and neutron are made of quarks. Can we see the quark? No – But conceptually, based on experiments we think quark is possible.

3. Neutrino, which scientists refer to as the ‘ghost particle’ continues to elude human detection as they are extremely reluctant to interact with matter and can travel for a light year through lead and emerge absolutely undetected. This is why for many years, the very existence of neutrino was questioned but now accepted.

4. What is light? Newton thought that light was made up of little particles or corpuscles – Hence they travel in straight line and they could be also refracted. But Newton’s rings, observed when a lens is illuminated by a monochromatic light (such as sodium light), placed on a flat reflecting plate, could be explained only based on wave theory of light. This duality is part of reality!

5. To understand the reality many theories are proposed and each seems to work within a certain range. For example, like charges are supposed to repel each other but the case seems to be different within a nucleus where the short range nuclear forces cluster the positive charges of protons together. In our universe the gravitation force is attractive but according to the dark matter and dark energy proposition, among the anti-particles the gravitational force would be repulsive (Otherwise, particles and anto-particles would destroy each other, giving rise to radiation and no life could exist).

Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow recall how a few years ago the city of Moza (Italy) banned pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowl as the curved edges would have a distorted view of reality (for the goldfish).[4] So observer is part of the reality and the understanding of the reality depends on one’s perception. The perceptions could be possibilities of probabilities.

Physics, Chemistry and Bilogy: Complementary

1. The fundamental entity of Physics, namely atom is made up of positively charged nucleus and negatively charged periphery. In biology, the fundamental unit is cell, which controls the exchange of electrically charged ions across the cell membrane.[5] In contrast to atom, the inside of cell (protoplasm) contains negative charges, while the cell membrane carries positive charges. And the cell membrane selectively allows diffusion of ions.

2. Electrical charges are proposed to play a role in wound healing: In a normal skin, the external skin surface is always electronegative with respect to the inner skin layers. In contast, in the case of a wound, it becomes positive compared with the surrounding intact skin and as healing progresses this potential changes.[6] So it was long ago and even tried a few decades ago, by keeping a silver mesh in the wound-area and applying mild electricity so that positive charges could be induced to accelerate the healing process. There seems to be clinical evidence base for silver dressings in the management of contaminated and infected acute and chronic wounds.[7] Using silver mesh, when compared with silver sulfadiazine cream, seems to yield better result in treatment of pressure ulcers.[8]

3. And these electric charges in organic materials seem to flow when there is benzene ring structure or the conjugate bond system of alternate single and double bond system. The flow of electrical charges seems to be enhanced if there is fish-bone like structure of the molecular structure. The chemical structure is essential in carrying through energy through the living system. Very often the organic materials, such as pthalocyanine, helps us understand the energy flow in hemoglobin as four phthalocyanine molecules are in a hemoglobin molecule.

4. Often the living organism is affected by heavy metal ions such as mercury, cadmium etc that are found in the industrial effluent. When the fish, for example, ingest these heavy metal ions it reaches human beings, when consumed, and these heavy metal ions are overtaxing kidneys in the removal process. The study of fish organs infected with heavy metal ions helps us monitor environmental protection.

Thus we could see that physics and chemistry are at the service of biology – Not only to understand the mechanism but to understand the living beings better. A single atom of physics and a molecule of chemistry become alive when they become an integral part of a biological system. Thus Physics, Chemistry, and Biology are complementary and when they converge they become alive.

Literature Survey:

In the presentations today one could see how chemical energy combined with physical devices could meet the needs of biology or physiology. Thus not only physics and chemistry meet in biology; but also we could say that physics and chemistry are at the service of biology to enhance and enrich biological system.

1. Neuron: The basic energy carrier in a biological system is neuron. It is an electrically excitable cell, which can receive, process, and transmit information through electrical and chemical signals. The signal networking is known as synapses and neurons form the central nervous system.[9] How such system could respond quicker to unpreferable information has been studied on Aplysia by Sayuri KIBE and Soshi ISHIDA.

2. Neurotransmitters: Once signal is generated, neurons transmit signals by diffusion of several kinds of organic compounds such as dopamine or 4-aminobutanoic acid called neurotransmitters via the synaptic clefts. This study has used the fluorescent molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles, using serotonin as the target transmitter. Thanks to Sisako MORI and Naoya OOSAWA for their finding out the possible trasnmitting platforms.

3. Development of Drug: Once target transmitter is identified, the next step would be the development of drug. When a drug is developed, one should make sure whether the drug is therapeutically effective or biologically toxic. In the work of Maki SEKI et al safe method of molecularly imprinted polymers are used.

4. Drug Metabolism: Another factor to keep in mind, while developing a drug, is the drug metabolism. In the work of Keiichi Kimura et al importance of Oxygen has been taken into consideration, and human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived hepatocytes (iHeps) have been found as alternative cell sources. “Essential factor is oxygen supply to the cell layer especially of oxygen permeability, causing cells differentiating in optimum oxygen supply condition” – Direct oxygenation with PDMS membrane is found to be a better alternative culture.

5. Fabrication of islet-like Tissues: Now comes in the phase of fabrication of medium. Mao Kameda group has found that Islet transplantation is highly expected as a new therapeutic approach to treat patients with type I diabetes mellitus (DM). They have come up with production of cell aggregates incorporating cell-sized ECM microparticles that are made of collagen or Matrigel. The results are encouraging.

6. Bio-interface for Cell Membrane: The final stage seems to be bio-interface where physical principles and chemical energies could be incorporated. Soichiro Tatematsu et al have studied the immobilization on Graphite and found out that Ion channels play a crucial role in living organisms and it is also known as the drug targets. Their measurement of ion-channel activities has been investigated using artificial lipid membranes embedded in field effect transistors (FETs) using honeycomb lattice. The developed peptide-based interfaces of biocellular and nano-sheet material will open new biosensors for single cell analysis and diagnosis.

Out best wishes goes to these scholars to be at the service of human kind.

Purpose of Research:

We know knowledge is not for the sake of knowing more and more, however sophisticated it might be. The knowledge one gains should be put to the service of mankind to enhance as well enrich the lives of our fellow human beings. Every researcher should think and feel and work to make this universe, where he/she comes from, should become a more livable place – liveable and affordable for all people especially the needy in the society. This is the social component of the research. We are born, as popularly believed, with cumulative intelligence (inherited through the millenium of human experience and expertise) but we should put it to the better use for all who live and who would live in the globe.

The African concept of collective empowering could be brought in here. The interconnectedness concept of Ubuntu (from the Bantu language in Africa) is based on the philosophy of ‘everyone is part of the whole’ and the social awareness that ‘I am because of who we all are’ could inspire the researchers that they are part of something larger and more powerful. This concept could kindle one’s social responsibility of caring, sharing, and being in harmony and at the same time the collective concept of being empowered altogether for better life environment.

In our context, the better understanding of the universe, matter-energy interaction, interfacing of physics and chemistry with biology should be for the effective social betterment:

1. It is heartening to see the goal of research, for example of Risako MORI and Naoya OOSAWA, is tuned to clarify the role of neurotransmitters in function of brains for example depression and Parkinsson’s disease;
2. Concern for the global needs especailly in the developing countries is much appreciated as Maki Seki et al experiment to make immunoassay process for developing countries affordable; and the Mao Kameda group keeps in focus specifically diabetic patients as beneficiaries.

This social component of research is the one that makes the difference between commercializing the scientific research to become rich or to enrich the lives of common people who need our help most.

• Talk delivered at Shibaura Inst of Technology, Tokyo (23^rd Oct 2017)

Invited by NCRM: Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine

YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot0XuP3C8cU

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_water

[2] https://www.slideshare.net/syedtaimurrahim/water-in-animal-nutrition

[3] The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, Bantom Books, London, 2010, p.71.

[4] Ibid, p.53.

[5] http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Electrical_properties_of_cell_membranes

[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3928760/

[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2742464/

[8] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21675444

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron