Hello Dear Friends, Seekers and Cultural Creatives,
The Unabridged History of The Biology of Belief
As a student in the University of Virginia’s graduate school in 1968, I had the honor of being a protégé of the renowned biologist Irwin Konigsberg, who at the time, was the world’s expert on culturing stem cells. In Irv’s lab I learned the technique of culturing myoblasts, the stem cell precursors responsible for the creation of the body’s skeletal muscles. The process starts with removing embryos from very small quail eggs and under the microscope, surgically dissecting the muscle tissue in their developing legs. The excised muscle is then incubated in a solution of trypsin enzymes which breaks down the connective tissue matrix and releases a population of formerly embedded embryonic cells.
After spinning the freed cells in a centrifuge, I remove the precipitate, a mass of muscle cells including myoblasts and fibroblasts, the precursor cells of the connective tissue sheaths, ligaments and tendons. The free cells ware then inoculated into plastic culture dishes and grown in “culture medium,” a liquid environment containing an enriched solution of nutrients and metabolites to support the growth of the cells. The chemistry of culture medium is based on the chemistry of the blood of the animal from which the cells were derived.
In the microscope, individual myoblast stem cells can be easily identified because of their unique spindle shape that distinguishes them from the irregular, flattened shape of the fibroblast cells. In the culture, the extracted cells divide every 10 to 12 hours. After about 8-10 days, the resulting myoblast and fibroblast colonies can easily be distinguished with the naked eye.
A glass ring, cut from a narrow glass tube, is used to surround a selected myoblast colony. The glass ring is anchored to the culture dish with a bead of silicone grease. An enzyme introduced into the glass ring’s well causes the enclosed myoblast cells in the colony to be released from culture dish surface. The resulting myoblast suspension is then inoculated into a new plastic culture dish. The sparse myoblast density in the inoculum results in the cells being separated by distances from one another. Using a microscope, I mark the location of isolated myoblasts and then surround an individual cell with another glass ring. The single myoblast contained within this ring proliferates and creates a colony in a process is called cloning. Since all the cells derived in the encircled colony are derived from a single precursor cell, they are all genetically identical.
I will never forget the admonition offered by Irv when I finished creating my first clonal culture dish and was putting it into the incubator. He said, “If the myoblasts do not look healthy in a day or two, don’t consider that the problem is associated with the cells. The most likely problem is with the chemistry of the culture medium, the cell’s environment.” At the time, I was unaware of the significance that Irv’s warning about environment would play in the future of my research.
I completed my research at the University of Virginia in 1971 with the publication of my doctoral thesis on muscle differentiation, a study that was published in the distinguished Journal of Cell Biology. For the next two years I was a postdoctoral scientist at the University of Texas researching embryonic development. These studies resulted in two new research articles published in another prominent journal, Developmental Biology.
After Texas, in 1973, I was hired as an Assistant Professor in the Anatomy Department of the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine. In that position, I taught medical students the sciences of Histology, Cell Biology, and Embryology. Based on my previous research success, I was awarded a large grant from the National Institute of Health to pursue my research on cloning stem cells.
As in Virginia, most of the time my tissue culture studies led to significant insights on the molecular development of skeletal muscle tissue. These studies produced 5 more research articles published in leading scientific journals. In 1979, my research findings were published in one of the world’s leading journals, Science. This research spawned a new form of genetic engineering in healing muscular dystrophy.
Later, the direction of my research changed to focus on studying the conditions by which the spindle-shaped myoblasts transformed their morphology into flattened fibroblast cells or rounded lipid-containing cells. I began to clone the “modulated” or “transformed” myoblasts cells and follow their subsequent fate. Through chemical analysis, the fibroblast-like cells began to synthesize massive quantities of Type I collagen fibers, characteristic of connective tissue and bone tissue. In the less than favorable conditions, the spindle-shaped myoblasts also began to accumulate large lipid droplets in their cytoplasm. These cells eventually rounded up and differentiated into adipocytes (fat cells).
I assessed the chemical differences in the growth medium that led to myoblast transformations. I carried out further experiments to demonstrate the developmental impact of the “altered” environment on myoblasts. In these studies, I cloned pure myoblast colonies for about 9 to 10 days, at which time the cultures contained about 30,000 genetically identical cells. I then split the cell population into 3 culture dishes containing about 10,000 cells in each dish. The point is that all three resulting dishes contained genetically identical cells.
I fed each of the dishes with a different chemical version of culture medium. In dish A, the cells were grown with conventional muscle-inducing culture medium. In dish B, the cells were fed with growth medium that caused the myoblasts to transform into collagen-producing fibroblast cells. In dish C, the cells were fed with medium that modulated the myoblast stem cells to differentiate into fat cells.
The fundamental question revealed in these experiments was, “What controlled the fate of the cells?” The fact that all the cells were genetically identical emphasized the conclusion that it was the different environments that controlled the fate of the cells. These results blew my mind since conventional biology had established that genes controlled the differentiation of the cells … but in these studies, all the cloned cells had the same genome. The experimental results, repeated and replicated many times, revealed that the fate of my stem cells were controlled by the environment.
My colleagues, caught up in the conventional belief of genetic determinism, the notion that genes turned on and off and control the fate of cells. They dismissed my results, attributing them to artifacts of my cell culture technique. No one believed my results that the environment was controlling the fate of the cells. The basic criticism from my colleagues was that I could not identify the mechanism by which environment controlled gene activity. After a while, the negative reception of my research led me to resign my professorship in the University of Wisconsin’s School of Medicine.
My research finally revealed the mechanism by which environmental signals controlled cell behavior and genetics. The study revealed that the cell membrane is a crystal semiconductor with protein gates and channels, which is the same definition of a computer chip, an information processor. The cell was a “programmable” chip, and the nucleus was the equivalent of a “hard drive” containing gene programs.
Then it dawned on me that the human body is a “skin-covered” culture dish containing 50 trillion cells“. The body also had the original culture medium, the blood. It made no difference if a cell was in a plastic dish or a skin dish, its fate was controlled by the chemistry of the culture medium or the blood environment. In the body, the blood’s chemistry which shaped the fate of the cells is controlled by the brain. That question finally led to, “what controls the blood’s chemistry,” which in turn controls the cell’s genes and behavior.
The answer: The chemistry released by the brain was controlled by the individual’s consciousness. For example, if individual was focused on love, the brain released dopamine (pleasure), oxytocin (bonding), and growth hormone (enhanced health). That is why people are so healthy when they fall in love.
However, if that person’s mind was focused on fear, their brain released radically different chemistry, stress hormone and factors that shut down the individual’s immune system.
The conclusion was clear: Conscious beliefs controlled biology. My experiments were pioneering studies that revealed the science of Epigenetics(environment control over genes), the new science that was finally accepted by conventional scientists in 1990, twenty-three years after my original studies revealed that same truth.
That new “truth,” the Biology of Belief, is now an accepted scientific reality!
With wishes my new book, BEYOND DARWIN (available on August 18th), will empower YOU and the rest of civilization to manifest a world filled with Health and Happiness,
Bruce
New Book!
I am thrilled to announce that my new book, Beyond Darwin, How Epigenetics, Quantum Science, and Cooperation Shape Humanity’s Future will be released this year, on August 18. Beyond Darwin challenges the concept of “survival of the fittest” with a radical, science-backed vision of conscious evolution. Drawing on epigenetics, quantum physics, and fractal geometry, this paradigm shattering theory reframes today’s global chaos as a predictable transition—and offers a hopeful blueprint for humanity’s cooperative future.
Please visit this LINK to pre-order your copy today!
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Australia, Where Should We Meet?
Dear Friends in Australia,
After almost a decade, I’m preparing to return in March 2027 for a series of live experiences with my dear friend – and fellow Aussie – Prof. Matt Riemann.
Before Matt and I choose the communities we visit, I’d love to hear from you. Where are you, and where should we meet?
I can’t wait to be back. Cast your vote now – we’re booking the locations soon – it takes about 30 seconds – and, as a special thank-you, the first 100 early voters can unlock special Founding Voter pricing on up to two tickets.
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