Andrew: I actually operate on cells without killing them. Not many people seem to have the patience do that. I've been able to do amputations of cells. I've been able to pull on receptors. I've been able to remove chromosomes, organelles, nuclei. And, I've been able to -

Jack: Now, wait a minute — you’ve been able to remove one gene?

Andrew: No! Remove genes. Plural. Like whole genomes, half genomes, stretches of a chromosome that sort of thing.

Jack: To look at these things: what do you need?

Andrew: A microscope. A very, very high-resolution microscope.

Jack: Called?

Andrew: Well, it's a Zeiss or a Nikon with a 630 x-objective.

Jack: What does that mean?

Andrew: That means that the amplification in size is approximately 2-3 thousand times when it gets onto the computer monitor.

Jack: When you remove these genes -

Andrew: It's the micro-needle

Jack: You said it was very, very, the width - ?

Andrew: Yeah, its about a half a wavelength of visible light in diameter.

Jack: Half a wavelength of light in diameter.

Andrew: Yeah, a wavelength of light is about a micron. Visible light I should say, and then half of that is about 500 nanometers.

Jack: And with tensegrity you're saying that you pull somewhere and you feel that integrity and tension, together.

Andrew: The integrity and tension disseminate through the system. Other kinds of models which explain the cell won't do that. Tensegrity is a contraction of tension and integrity. There's tension throughout the system and its integrating. Integrated tension. I've demonstrated that. That is the way the cytoskeletal lattices are organized. There not organized according to the continual mechanical models that most biophysicists still publish on and study.

Jack: Many of your colleagues don’t like tensegrity. Even if they agree with your findings they don’t see what the term adds to the studies you’ve done, they don’t think that it’s needed.

Andrew: No! They think the cell is a water balloon, and they want to preserve their old 17th century thoughts Many people want to continue to look at the cell as though its a big vessel of colloids [suspensions like particles floating in a gel in a cell] running around bumping into each other, when in fact, its not; it’s a highly- structured organization of protoplasm. One would wager that almost every water molecule is tethered. There’s very little free water in the cell, to have chemical reactions with. It all migrates around these little fibers and that's why they’re studying motors here at this meeting, to understand the cargo. They’re tethered to a railroad track, okay, they don’t diffuse randomly. If they did, it violates another the basic principles of fidelity and efficiency. The times that reactions would take to icome to fruition would be enormous. The responses of cells to a physical perturbation such as pulling on your eyelid and watching it snap back would take forever if it were a water balloon.

Jack: It has lattices?

Andrew: It has lattices in it that are connected in certain ways. Like that model I brought. [Maniotis had used a model during his presentation]

Jack: It keeps its structure? Protects it?

Andrew: What I believe is, its there to maintain itself against change. That’s the reason why clams have stayed the same for so many millions of years.

Jack: O.K. But you are able to turn your model inside out.

Andrew: Well, I've done that. I've turned cells inside out. But the principle experiment I'm talking about is just to pull on it, and to see if the response would be that of a water balloon. And it's not. It has the response of that funny model I brought.

Jack: You also said it was also like a tent in a way.

Andrew: Yes, it's tethered and it's interconnected by large posts and things like that. So, if you tug on one area of it that force will be dissipated throughout the whole structure. Rather than a continuum model, a balloon filled with water or even molasses.

Jack: But isn't it? Isn't the tension among cells all together just like the tension created by packed masses of water balloons?

Andrew: Water can act as a compression - resistant structure if it’s put in a balloon or something like that. But, again you’re confirming rather than denying, because that's, that's not all that's in there. The water can act as a compression resistance structure. Many cells have big vacuoles in them filled with water, and that will act as a compression-resistant struts, under continuous tension. What we’re talking about is not the specific A’s, B's, and C's within the cell. We’re trying to generalize the forces which will describe the cell more accurately. And that is through an integration of these ... they could be vacuoles, they could be filaments, they could be other kinds of structures. But the bottom line is that there is continuous tension in the system. And it resists the force of that tension pulling it together by having one or many forms of compression resistance. It may be the way it attaches to the outside, because you can resist tension by nailing it like a tent with these things so it won't implode, or collapse. Or you can have structures on the inside, which are very firm, that don't bend very well like microtubules, or vacuoles, or the nucleus, itself, or DNA - DNA is a wonderful tensgrity structure in and of itself such that the modules within the cell are also conforming to these principles.