[bioundgrd] Course in Metakaryotic Biology and Macroepidemiology (20.102)

[MacKenzie Outlund]

*20.102 Metakaryotic Biology and Macroepidemiology*

(3-0-9) Prereq.: 18.01

TR 1:00-2:30  (Meets with 20.215)

56-614

W.G.Thilly <thilly at mit.edu>



This course explores the new paradigm of *metakaryotic* stem cell biology as
the driving force underlying age specific cancer and vascular diseases that
account for some 75% of deaths in present day America.

Key to this new field was the discovery at MIT of a bizarre amitotic stem
cell lineage that arises from embryonic stem cells about the fifth week of
human gestation and drives fetal/juvenile organogenesis, carcinogenesis and,
apparently, atherogenesis. These *metakaryotic* cells do not condense DNA in
chromosomes before nuclear fission as in mitosis in *eukaryotic *cells but
copy their DNA post-fission after amitotic segregation into single stranded
DNA genomic copies. Direct measurements of clusters of mutations in human
lungs have associated very high mutation rates with metakaryotic stem cell
doublings during the fetal/juvenile period. This metakaryotic mutator
phenotype has been further associated with two error-prone DNA polymerases
and  seems to account for the phenomena of tumor initiation in normal
metakaryotic stem cells. Biologically based cascade models of carcinogenesis
and atherogenesis have been developed, now incorporating the known elements
of metakaryotic biology. U.S. age-specific disease mortality data have been
collected and organized from 1890-2006 http://epidemiology.mit.edu.With
these tools students will explore the roles of inherited and environmental
risks in a “clonal” disease of his or her choice.

[20.104, Spring, 2010, will address potential means to slow the growth or
kill pathogenic metakaryotic stem cells and to reduce their rates of
mutation in the fetal/juvenile period.].

*Enrollment limited to 24 students. *

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