Epigenetic Tracking: Towards a Project for an Artificial Biology

TL;DR

This paper introduces Epigenetic Tracking, a cellular growth model capable of generating complex shapes and simulating biological phenomena like aging and cancer, aiming to unify key aspects of artificial biology.

Contribution

It presents a novel unified model that simulates embryogenesis, differentiation, aging, and carcinogenesis within a single framework, advancing artificial biology research.

Findings

Successfully generates arbitrary target shapes of large size

Models key biological processes such as junk DNA, aging, and cancer

Validates the model as a comprehensive tool for artificial biology

Abstract

This paper deals with a model of cellular growth called "Epigenetic Tracking", whose key features are: i) distinction bewteen "normal" and "driver" cells; ii) presence in driver cells of an epigenetic memory, that holds the position of the cell in the driver cell lineage tree and represents the source of differentiation during development. In the first part of the paper the model is proved able to generate arbitrary target shapes of unmatched size and variety by means of evo-devo techniques, thus being validated as a model of embryogenesis and cellular differentiation. In the second part of the paper it is shown how the model can produce artificial counterparts for some key aspects of multicellular biology, such as junk DNA, ageing and carcinogenesis. If individually each of these topics has been the subject of intense investigation and modelling effort, to our knowledge no single model or theory seeking to cover all of them under a unified framework has been put forward as yet: this work contains such a theory, which makes Epigenetic Tracking a potential basis for a project of Artificial Biology.