Keith Baverstock | University of Eastern Finland (original) (raw)
Papers by Keith Baverstock
Radiation and Environmental Biophysics, 1982
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Environmental Health Perspectives, 1997
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International Congress Series, 2002
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Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 2014
The sequencing of the human genome raises two intriguing questions: why has the prediction of the... more The sequencing of the human genome raises two intriguing questions: why has the prediction of the inheritance of common diseases from the presence of abnormal alleles proved so unrewarding in most cases and how can some 25 000 genes generate such a rich complexity evident in the human phenotype? It is proposed that light can be shed on these questions by viewing evolution and organisms as natural processes contingent on the second law of thermodynamics, equivalent to the principle of least action in its original form. Consequently, natural selection acts on variation in any mechanism that consumes energy from the environment rather than on genetic variation. According to this tenet cellular phenotype, represented by a minimum free energy attractor state comprising active gene products, has a causal role in giving rise, by a self-similar process of cell-to-cell interaction, to morphology and functionality in organisms, which, in turn, by a self-similar process entailing Darwin's ...
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British Journal of Cancer, 1986
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Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2021
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Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 2012
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International Journal of Radiation Biology, 1991
The chemical instability of DNA under physiological conditions requires that cells have highly de... more The chemical instability of DNA under physiological conditions requires that cells have highly developed processes for repairing stochastic single-strand damage. It is proposed here that provided ionizing-radiation-induced single-strand damage does not occur at a rate sufficient to perturb the dynamic steady state between degradation and repair, it can be regarded as "irrelevant' to biological effect, leaving double-strand damage and DNA-protein crosslinks as "relevant' damage to biological effect. At dose rates of approximately 0.05 Gy/min low-LET radiation the rate of induced single-strand damage equals that of the spontaneous damage, and in this region a transition, with increasing dose-rate, from constant effect to increasing effect, will be expected. This is observed in studies of specific locus mutation by radiation in the male mouse. The application of this biophysical principle governing the influence of radiation dose-rate, to the association observed between paternal preconceptional dose to Sellafield workers and childhood leukaemia in their offspring, shows that the likelihood of a causal relationship is extremely remote.
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Health physics, 2003
Advertisement. Close Window. Close Window. Thank you for choosing to subscribe to the eTOC for He... more Advertisement. Close Window. Close Window. Thank you for choosing to subscribe to the eTOC for Health Physics. Enter your Email address: Wolters Kluwer Health may email you for journal alerts and information, but is committed ...
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PLOS One, 2008
Background: Understanding how mammalian cells are regulated epigenetically to express phenotype i... more Background: Understanding how mammalian cells are regulated epigenetically to express phenotype is a priority. The cellular phenotypic transition, induced by ionising radiation, from a normal cell to the genomic instability phenotype, where the ability to replicate the genotype accurately is compromised, illustrates important features of epigenetic regulation. Based on this phenomenon and earlier work we propose a model to describe the mammalian cell as a self assembled open system operating in an environment that includes its genotype, neighbouring cells and beyond. Phenotype is represented by high dimensional attractors, evolutionarily conditioned for stability and robustness and contingent on rules of engagement between gene products encoded in the genetic network. Methodology/Findings: We describe how this system functions and note the indeterminacy and fluidity of its internal workings which place it in the logical reasoning framework of predicative logic. We find that the hypo...
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BMJ, 2003
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Communicative & Integrative Biology, 2016
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Health Physics, 1997
Rongelap Island was the home of Marshallese people numbering less than 120 in 1954; 67 were on th... more Rongelap Island was the home of Marshallese people numbering less than 120 in 1954; 67 were on the island and severely exposed to radioactive fallout from an atomic weapons test in March of that year. Those resident on Rongelap were evacuated 50 h after the test, returned 3 y later, then voluntarily left their home island in 1985 due to their ongoing fear of radiation exposure from residual radioactive contamination. Following international negotiations in 1991, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed in early 1992 between the Republic of the Marshall Islands Government, the Rongelap Atoll Local Government, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of the Interior. In this MOU it was agreed that the Republic of the Marshall Islands, with the aid of the U.S. Department of Energy, would carry out independent dose assessments for the purpose of assisting and advising the Rongelap community on radiological issues related to a safe resettlement of Rongelap. The MOU enacted two action levels which were agreed to be used to establish whether mitigation should be considered as a condition for resettlement of Rongelap Island: (1) no individual should receive an annual dose in the future of 1 mSv or more, above that from natural background radiation, assuming that his/her diet consists of only locally produced foods, and (2) the total surface soil concentration of plutonium and other transuranic elements must be less than 629 Bq kg(-1) (averaged over the top 5 cm). Environmental radiological data and dietary information were collected over two years (1992-1993) for the purpose of predicting future potential doses to Rongelapese who might resettle. In 1994, four independent assessments were reported, including one from each of the following entities: Marshall Islands Nationwide Radiological Study; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; an independent advisor from the United Kingdom (MCT); and a committee of the National Research Council. All four assessments concluded that possibly more than 25% of the adult population could exceed the 1 mSv y(-1) dose level based on strict utilization of a local food diet. The purpose of this report is to summarize the methodology, assumptions, and findings from each of four assessments; to summarize the recommendations related to mitigation and resettlement options; to discuss unique programmatic aspects of the study; and to consider the implications of the findings to the future of the Rongelap people.
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Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2007
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Journal of The Society for Radiological Protection, 1987
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Journal of The Society for Radiological Protection, 1987
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Journal of the Society for Radiological Protection, 1987
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Journal of The Society for Radiological Protection, 1986
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Progress in Biophysics & Molecular Biology, 2011
Two models for mammalian cell regulation that invoke the concept of cellular phenotype represente... more Two models for mammalian cell regulation that invoke the concept of cellular phenotype represented by high dimensional dynamic attractor states are compared. In one model the attractors are derived from an experimentally determined genetic regulatory network (GRN) for the cell type. As the state space architecture within which the attractors are embedded is determined by the binding sites on proteins and the recognition sites on DNA the attractors can be described as “hard-wired” in the genome through the genomic DNA sequence. In the second model attractors arising from the interactions between active gene products (mainly proteins) and independent of the genomic sequence, are descended from a pre-cellular state from which life originated. As this model is based on the cell as an open system the attractor acts as the interface between the cell and its environment. Environmental sources of stress can serve to trigger attractor and therefore phenotypic, transitions without entailing genotypic sequence changes.It is asserted that the evidence from cell and molecular biological research and logic, favours the second model. If correct there are important implications for understanding how environmental factors impact on evolution and may be implicated in hereditary and somatic disease.
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Radiation and Environmental Biophysics, 1982
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Environmental Health Perspectives, 1997
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
International Congress Series, 2002
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 2014
The sequencing of the human genome raises two intriguing questions: why has the prediction of the... more The sequencing of the human genome raises two intriguing questions: why has the prediction of the inheritance of common diseases from the presence of abnormal alleles proved so unrewarding in most cases and how can some 25 000 genes generate such a rich complexity evident in the human phenotype? It is proposed that light can be shed on these questions by viewing evolution and organisms as natural processes contingent on the second law of thermodynamics, equivalent to the principle of least action in its original form. Consequently, natural selection acts on variation in any mechanism that consumes energy from the environment rather than on genetic variation. According to this tenet cellular phenotype, represented by a minimum free energy attractor state comprising active gene products, has a causal role in giving rise, by a self-similar process of cell-to-cell interaction, to morphology and functionality in organisms, which, in turn, by a self-similar process entailing Darwin's ...
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British Journal of Cancer, 1986
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Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2021
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, 2012
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
International Journal of Radiation Biology, 1991
The chemical instability of DNA under physiological conditions requires that cells have highly de... more The chemical instability of DNA under physiological conditions requires that cells have highly developed processes for repairing stochastic single-strand damage. It is proposed here that provided ionizing-radiation-induced single-strand damage does not occur at a rate sufficient to perturb the dynamic steady state between degradation and repair, it can be regarded as "irrelevant' to biological effect, leaving double-strand damage and DNA-protein crosslinks as "relevant' damage to biological effect. At dose rates of approximately 0.05 Gy/min low-LET radiation the rate of induced single-strand damage equals that of the spontaneous damage, and in this region a transition, with increasing dose-rate, from constant effect to increasing effect, will be expected. This is observed in studies of specific locus mutation by radiation in the male mouse. The application of this biophysical principle governing the influence of radiation dose-rate, to the association observed between paternal preconceptional dose to Sellafield workers and childhood leukaemia in their offspring, shows that the likelihood of a causal relationship is extremely remote.
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Health physics, 2003
Advertisement. Close Window. Close Window. Thank you for choosing to subscribe to the eTOC for He... more Advertisement. Close Window. Close Window. Thank you for choosing to subscribe to the eTOC for Health Physics. Enter your Email address: Wolters Kluwer Health may email you for journal alerts and information, but is committed ...
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PLOS One, 2008
Background: Understanding how mammalian cells are regulated epigenetically to express phenotype i... more Background: Understanding how mammalian cells are regulated epigenetically to express phenotype is a priority. The cellular phenotypic transition, induced by ionising radiation, from a normal cell to the genomic instability phenotype, where the ability to replicate the genotype accurately is compromised, illustrates important features of epigenetic regulation. Based on this phenomenon and earlier work we propose a model to describe the mammalian cell as a self assembled open system operating in an environment that includes its genotype, neighbouring cells and beyond. Phenotype is represented by high dimensional attractors, evolutionarily conditioned for stability and robustness and contingent on rules of engagement between gene products encoded in the genetic network. Methodology/Findings: We describe how this system functions and note the indeterminacy and fluidity of its internal workings which place it in the logical reasoning framework of predicative logic. We find that the hypo...
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BMJ, 2003
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Communicative & Integrative Biology, 2016
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Health Physics, 1997
Rongelap Island was the home of Marshallese people numbering less than 120 in 1954; 67 were on th... more Rongelap Island was the home of Marshallese people numbering less than 120 in 1954; 67 were on the island and severely exposed to radioactive fallout from an atomic weapons test in March of that year. Those resident on Rongelap were evacuated 50 h after the test, returned 3 y later, then voluntarily left their home island in 1985 due to their ongoing fear of radiation exposure from residual radioactive contamination. Following international negotiations in 1991, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed in early 1992 between the Republic of the Marshall Islands Government, the Rongelap Atoll Local Government, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of the Interior. In this MOU it was agreed that the Republic of the Marshall Islands, with the aid of the U.S. Department of Energy, would carry out independent dose assessments for the purpose of assisting and advising the Rongelap community on radiological issues related to a safe resettlement of Rongelap. The MOU enacted two action levels which were agreed to be used to establish whether mitigation should be considered as a condition for resettlement of Rongelap Island: (1) no individual should receive an annual dose in the future of 1 mSv or more, above that from natural background radiation, assuming that his/her diet consists of only locally produced foods, and (2) the total surface soil concentration of plutonium and other transuranic elements must be less than 629 Bq kg(-1) (averaged over the top 5 cm). Environmental radiological data and dietary information were collected over two years (1992-1993) for the purpose of predicting future potential doses to Rongelapese who might resettle. In 1994, four independent assessments were reported, including one from each of the following entities: Marshall Islands Nationwide Radiological Study; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; an independent advisor from the United Kingdom (MCT); and a committee of the National Research Council. All four assessments concluded that possibly more than 25% of the adult population could exceed the 1 mSv y(-1) dose level based on strict utilization of a local food diet. The purpose of this report is to summarize the methodology, assumptions, and findings from each of four assessments; to summarize the recommendations related to mitigation and resettlement options; to discuss unique programmatic aspects of the study; and to consider the implications of the findings to the future of the Rongelap people.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2007
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Journal of The Society for Radiological Protection, 1987
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of The Society for Radiological Protection, 1987
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of the Society for Radiological Protection, 1987
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of The Society for Radiological Protection, 1986
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Progress in Biophysics & Molecular Biology, 2011
Two models for mammalian cell regulation that invoke the concept of cellular phenotype represente... more Two models for mammalian cell regulation that invoke the concept of cellular phenotype represented by high dimensional dynamic attractor states are compared. In one model the attractors are derived from an experimentally determined genetic regulatory network (GRN) for the cell type. As the state space architecture within which the attractors are embedded is determined by the binding sites on proteins and the recognition sites on DNA the attractors can be described as “hard-wired” in the genome through the genomic DNA sequence. In the second model attractors arising from the interactions between active gene products (mainly proteins) and independent of the genomic sequence, are descended from a pre-cellular state from which life originated. As this model is based on the cell as an open system the attractor acts as the interface between the cell and its environment. Environmental sources of stress can serve to trigger attractor and therefore phenotypic, transitions without entailing genotypic sequence changes.It is asserted that the evidence from cell and molecular biological research and logic, favours the second model. If correct there are important implications for understanding how environmental factors impact on evolution and may be implicated in hereditary and somatic disease.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact