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WelshHello Dear Friends, Cultural Creatives & Seekers Everywhere,
EPIGENETICS: A Funny Thing Happened … On The Way To Doing Something Else
In 1967, I was learning the technique of growing cells in plastic culture dishes at the University of Virginia. There are two fundamental steps in the process: Step 1) Creating a suspension of isolated single cells to be inoculated into a culture dish; and Step 2) Creating culture medium, the fluid environment in which cells grow.
Starting with embryonic muscle tissue, digestive enzymes are used to breakdown the connective tissue matrix of the muscle, which frees individual cells. In the enzyme-saline solution, the released free cells are spun down in a centrifuge tube forming a pellet at the bottom of tube. The cell pellet is resuspended in fresh culture medium and a sample is pipetted into each culture dish. The suspended cells settle down, attach to dish’s surface, and begin to grow. The cultured cells live in a fluid environment referred to as culture medium. Growth medium is the laboratory version of blood, the fluid environment that cells live in within the body.
The cells I was particularly interested in were myoblasts, muscle stem cells that exhibit a characteristic symmetrical spindle shape. A glass ring around is placed around a selected single myoblast stem cell in the culture dish. An enzyme solution introduced into the ring releases the myoblast cell from its attachment to culture dish surface. A pipette is used to suck-up the solution containing the single cell and introduce it into a new dish. The isolated cultured stem cell divides every 10 to 12 hours. After a week, the single stem cell can give rise to a population of about 30,000 genetically identical copies, clones, of the original stem cell.
Myoblast stem cells continue to divide in their growth phase. As the cells mature, they eventually fuse together, and differentiate into giant, long skeletal muscle fibers. The developmental fate of stem cells can be observed by using time-lapse cinematography. In addition, the anatomy and biochemistry of the differentiation of embryonic stem cells into specialized skeletal muscle tissues can provide vital information on the mechanics of muscle embryology, as well as offering insights into the nature of diseases, such as muscular dystrophy.
On the day I made my first cell cultures, my mentor Irwin Konigsberg, a distinguished pioneer in cell cloning technology, offered some advice, that later would later profoundly influence my career. Irv said, “When you check on the cells tomorrow, if they lose their spindle-shape and don’t look healthy, the problem lies in the culture medium (i.e., environment) and not in the cells.”
While a few stellate-looking cells always appeared in my cloned myoblast cultures, I basically ignored their presence. However, if an error was made in formulating the culture medium, all the cells in the culture dish would assume an altered shape (morphology). While the focus of my research was studying the differentiation of muscle, I often wondered if these irregular cells were actually “sick,” or if they were expressing a different developmental fate.
Many of the irregular cells had a large central vacuole that stored a mass of lipids. These cells were structurally and functionally identical to fat (adipose) cells. In contrast, the flattened stellate cells synthesized an extracellular matrix, which I chemically identified as the type of collagen matrix found in bone.
Through experimentation, I was able to formulate different culture medium variations that would consistently transform spindle-shaped myoblast stem cells into adipose or bone cells. The most exciting impact of these observations is that cells expressing muscle, adipose and bone characters all came from genetically identical stem cells. The big question is, “What controlled the transformation that led genetically-identical cells into different developmental fates?” While the genes in all the cells were the same, it was only the culture medium (environment) that was different.
The results of these experiments revealed that genetic activity was “controlled” by the environment! This observation fully challenged the conventional dogma that genes turning “on” and “off” by themselves controlled our physical, emotional, and behavioral characteristics. This misperception specifically led to the concept of genetic determinism, the notion that genes control life, a belief that we are victims of our heredity!
My research on how environment shapes genetic activity was published in 1977 as two scientific publications in the journal Developmental Biology: A fine structural analysis of normal and modulated cells in myogenic culture (Dev Biol, 60:26-47), and Collagen synthesis by normal and bromodeoxyuridine-treated cells in myogenic culture (Dev Biol, 61:153-165).
Twenty years after I started my stem cell research, the same conclusions were officially recognized by science in advancing the revolutionary field of Epigenetics … the science of how environment controls genetic activity. The most exciting consequence of these studies is the revelation that we are truly masters of our genome. Through consciousness we can rewrite our genetic expression in as little as 8 hours. We are empowered creators, not victims of our genome.
Personally, my life was profoundly enhanced from understanding the significance of these studies. Having a 20-year head start in the field of epigenetics, I saw in the science a “roadmap,” that enabled me to connect the dots between environment, genes, and the role of the conscious and subconscious minds in controlling the character of life. These insights led to the recognition that 95% of our lives are programmed in the first seven years of development. More importantly was the knowledge that we can actively rewrite dysfunctional programs that were formerly thought to be controlled by genes. In this process we can directly control our genes, behaviors, and emotions. Through the knowledge gained from studying cells, I have been able to create a most wonderful Heaven-on-Earth life … checkout the story in The Honeymoon Effect book.
Over time, it has become our mission to “spread the good news” of how truly powerful we are, for this new knowledge of self is the true source of self-empowerment.
Wishing YOU empowerment to manifest a life filled with health, happiness, and harmony.
With LOVE and LIGHT,
Bruce
Upcoming Events
At this time we are planning for these events to occur and will notify you if there’s a change in schedule.
Create Heaven on Earth
Holy Land Tour with Gregg Braden and Dr. Bruce Lipton
Bruce’s Spotlight
Years of lecturing around this beautiful planet have provided me an opportunity to encounter wonderful Cultural Creatives that are helping to bring harmony into the world. Each month, I want to honor cultural creatives by sharing with you the gifts they have shared with me.
This month I’d like to introduce you to my dear musician friend, Martha Reich. Martha is an award-winning Santa Fe-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, often compared to Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez. She is deeply inspired by nature and her unique style features an honesty and vulnerability that evokes “a sound almost woven out of the earth.” Reich sings from the brittle openings of the heart and has earned a Gold Medal for Female Vocalist in the 2018 Global Music Awards.
Martha has a beautiful new song release, The Letters, which was inspired by her family story.
In her words, “In 1943 my grandfather had written several letters to my mother while he was stationed away from home, serving as a Civil Engineer during World War II. My mom was 7 years old at the time. A few years ago my mother read some of those letters to me. Listening to her share these precious letters as tears streamed down her face, inspired me to write the song ‘THE LETTERS.’ I have many fond memories of my grandfather, as he was a gentle, creative and sweet man. I know it broke my mother’s heart as she witnessed her father’s amazing talents and abilities fade away, along with his precious memories due to the disease of Alzheimer’s. I wrote this song in honor of my mother and her father Charles.”
Listen to ‘THE LETTERS,’ now ‘For Your Consideration’ in this years GRAMMY Awards® in the category of Best American Roots Song and American Roots Performance on Bandcamp or Spotify or Martha’s Website.
Featuring Bruce
Mantras for Peace: A Wisdom Gathering Online is a treasure house of wise gems that includes 25 inspiring talks. If everyone listened to this Wisdom Gathering, we would be in a much better place as a society today. Check it out HERE.
Bruce Recommends
Before now, this has been an underground movement with raving fans, but now, the fungus is among us in the mainstream and has been featured in Vogue, NY Times, USA Today, and the LA Times, revealing the incredible healing power of mushrooms. Learn more about the power and benefits of mushrooms and register for free for the Global Summit in October HERE.
Translations
As inspiring number of people from around the world are joining this community of cultural creatives, we are working to translate more of Bruce’s videos into other languages! We are happy to announce two new streaming product in SPANISH.
La Gran Covergencia La Nueva Ciencia y la Trilogia Cuerpo-Mente-Espiritu po el Dr. Bruce H. Lipton
La Epigenética y La Historia de Los Exosomas: La Autopista de La Informacion y Unir Cuerpo y Mente
Did you know that Bruce’s books are translated in more than 30 languages?! For more information about Bruce’s translated books, please visit our publisher, Hay House. All written materials on Bruce’s website can be read in other languages by choosing from the dropdown menu at the top of each page.
Become a Member
Join today for the next Membership Call, happening Saturday October 16th at 9:00am PDT and get exclusive access to the audio and video resources in the Bruce Lipton Archive – featuring over 30 years of cutting-edge research and teaching. Plus, when you join you’ll have the chance to ask your questions and hear Bruce LIVE on our Monthly Member Webinars. Learn more about Membership details.