DNA Repair Requires Teamwork
As if the genetic code itself was’t incredible enough, researchers have been finding systems that repair it. There are numerous pathways the cell can embark on to fix DNA errors. Two key players were recently described in more detail in the journal Science.1
A damaged genetic code is worse than a book with typos. Broken or mismatched DNA strands can lead to serious diseases and even death. It is essential that DNA damage be recognized and repaired quickly. Science Daily reported results by a team at Rockefeller University and Harvard Medical School that found two essential proteins that act like “molecular tailors” that can snip out an error and sew it back up with the correct molecules. These proteins, FANC1 and FANCD2, repair inter-strand crosslinks, “one of the most lethal types of DNA damage.” This problem “occurs when the two strands of the double helix are linked together, blocking replication and transcription.” Each of your cells is likely to get 10 alarm calls a day for inter-strand crosslinks.
What do the proteins do to fix it? They link together and join other members of the repair pathway. The scientists found that FANC1 and FANCD2 are intimately involved in the excision and insertion steps.
This one repair operation requires 13 protein parts. “If any one of the 13 proteins in this pathway is damaged, the result is Fanconi anemia, a blood disorder that leads to bone marrow failure and leukemia, among other cancers, as well as many physiological defects,” the article said. The original paper put it, “Our results show that multiple steps of the essential S-phase ICL repair mechanism fail when the Fanconi anemia pathway is compromised.” Neither the paper nor the press release said anything about how this tightly-integrated system might have evolved.
1. Knipscheer et al, “The Fanconi Anemia Pathway Promotes Replication-Dependent DNA Interstrand Cross-Link Repair,” Science, 18 December 2009: Vol. 326. no. 5960, pp. 1698-1701, DOI: 10.1126/science.1182372.
Darwinism is like a perpetual bad economy with 100% unemployment. If Darwin & Co. cannot hire one professional, how are they going to hire 13 professionals and train them to do skilled work as a team? Even if they could afford to pay them, they couldn’t teach them how to do it. The teachers don’t have any goals or lesson plans, and they only speak gibberish.