Musings on the Mind-Blowing Cell Cycle

Humans, as creative as we are, are not ultimate. Just pick any living thing and see how miserably we’ve failed at making something from scratch! We’re getting better at copying it, though. Our hardware startup produces the Water Strider (an all-terrain landing gear for drones), which was designed in accordance with some basic guidelines and form factors we found in nature. And since we can’t even recreate a single celled organism that metabolizes, I like staying on this side of God: to observe, to listen, to respect, to honor, and imitate what I see in creation.

So when our family started a homeschool cobbled-together unit study on the human body based on a certain child’s propensity toward medicine, I was ready to learn about all of the amazing-ness of the crown jewel of creation. And I have learned so much over the past year! After we completed the final lessons, we decided that we didn’t know enough about two things: the immune system and cells themselves. So once per week for a month now, we have gone down the rabbit hole of cellular biology.

On Tuesday we started with a dialog about the Cell Cycle. Are you familiar with this? Interphase: the time when the cell is operating, metabolizing; and M-Phase: the time with the cell is actually multiplying through either mitosis (to make 2 genetically identical cells) and meiosis (to yield 4 cells each with half the genetic information of the original mother cell). Anyway, after today’s base lesson was complete (okay, after a few hours the children had gradually scattered and were starting to beg for food) I began to think about the beauty of the cell. This tiny little factory that reveals its bottomless mysteries even as our microscopy becomes more powerful — the way it goes through fairly distinct phases: growing so quickly, then replicating its DNA faithfully, moving toward reproduction, and then finally, cleanly multiplying itself in a fairly short amount of time. And just about every cell is also continuing to fulfill its original, designed function while all of this is going on. So pancreatic cells make insulin, nerve cells pass on messages, marrow cells make red blood cells, and kidney cells do . . . whatever it is they do.

And it caused me to think about our organizations, our businesses, governments, and families. For a very long time now, there has been a line of thinking that says, “if an leader is healthy, he will reproduce himself.” “If a business is healthy, it will add value.” “Healthy disciples reproduce themselves.” Etc, etc.

Today, when I looked to the cell, the complex building block of all of life, I saw a fairly tidy but also amazing scope and sequence for organizations:

1. G0. Don’t stop functioning, even if the ideal outcome is successful reproduction. Function continues for most of the life of a cell, as it should for the life of an organization. Some organizations, like cells, stay in a latent G0 phase, which means they don’t move on to reproduce themselves. It is now thought that cells which are to retain their function for long periods of time (e.g. certain cells in the brain) stay in this phase. Apparently reproduction is messy enough to be excluded by some for the sake of function. Hmmm. Now there’s something to think about when it comes to organizations.
2. G1. There will be an early “childlike” period of rapid growth and progress as the organization matures. Cells actually increase in size during the G1 phase. This reminded me of times when I was a part of a startup or learning a new skill. I wasn’t focused on reproduction, only on “metabolic” function (in the form of learning or converting materials and labor to cash) and growth. And when I consider organizations that appear to focus solely on reproduction, from click bait to some network marketing-driven companies, I take this as a sign that there probably wasn’t much valuable content actually present to reproduce.
3. S-Phase: An extended period of careful arrangement and replication of key genetic information happens before the movement toward reproduction. In human cells, this replication of a cell’s DNA is the longest phase. From an organizational standpoint, this reminds me that it takes time and energy to get the information and values-transfer from leaders to people. We should not overlook the importance or length of this phase. We can all point to issues in organisms arising from inaccurate parsing and replication of DNA. Organizations can suffer the same.
4. G2. The phase of the cell cycle which is focused on readiness for mitosis comes next. Just because a cell can replicate doesn’t mean it should. We don’t exactly understand the role of the G2 phase in the cell cycle, but one hypothesis is that it helps the cell to check the accuracy of DNA replication and regulate its own cell size and function. Cancerous cells seem to have a “broken” G2 cycle. We don’t yet understand the deleterious effects of pushing a cell or organism to reproduce prematurely, but I think many of us have experienced the effects of unpreparedness for moving forward with confidence.
5. Finally, the relatively short but relatively flashy and mind-blowing M-Phase: the time when the DNA uncoils from its spaghetti-like ball into condensed chromosomes, chromosomes align (a seemingly magical process!), are split, and then cytokinesis can happen and the cell actually replicates itself, creating a genetically identical copy.

I know the analog has its limits, but my mind is still cranking on the beautiful and useful concepts I can learn for the health and reproduction of my own personal and organizational values. My mind was blown at the complexity and orchestration of these life-sustaining processes. I have a thousand lifetimes of lessons to learn from the tiny, beautiful cell!