Molecular Biology of the Cell

What Hacker News says

1. shevy-javaOct 2026
   > You may need to push for comprehensive genetic testing. > This caused a multi-month delay to getting genetic results, since the first results were done on the surgery tumor, not the biopsy tumor.

   I am confused. What does "comprehensive genetic testing" mean here?

   Note: I understand perfectly fine the idea of testing. I fail to see why this is required here.

   For instance, the blog author differs between surgery tumor and biopsy tumor. However had, a tumor is a clone, by definition; see Henrietta Lacks cells (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks).

   I do not understand his distinction here. I don't think the distinction makes any logical sense either.

   > Use AI to help you figure out what to pick based on your case.

   I fail to see the point here either.

   > The rest of the HN comments are worth reading too.

   I am not sure about that either.

   I understand the issue of cancer being different, and some can kill people quickly (Henrietta did not reach an old age), but I had small benign tumors removed surgically (fibroma of the fatty underskin). No extra treatment was necessary after that (this happened about 15 years ago or so). I understand that benign tumors are very different from metastasizing cancers; my point is more that I don't really agree with the statements made there in general. I think that surgery is a perfectly fine way for many cancers/tumors. It also is potentially very risky and can come in with huge problems. In my case, though, chopping off the small fibromas was the right choice. Unfortunately cancer will hat many people, also differently, so one may never be secure: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/understanding-...

   Risk of getting any type of cancer may be up to 40%; dying may be in between 13-17%, higher for older people. So I am not at all suggesting cancer is harmless at all, but at the same time I would not use that recipe listed on the author's blog entry either. I think the best qualitative assessment I could do is to say "it depends"; and to not rely on AI either. IMO most people should read up on things for a while, does not have to take long, say a week or two of slow, concentrated reading in a non-emotional but objective manner. Then you may understand a lot more. Cancer biology is, for the most part, actually cytology/cell biology. (The cancer chapter in the book molecular biology of the cell is also good; I think even non-scientists will understand most of that via slow reading too. Why does everyone want to succumb to AI here? I don't understand it.)

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2. tsoukaseAug 2026
   The cell is a factory. You can have deep dive with the book Molecular Biology of the Cell, although it's used in university. It's the SICP of biology. The latter was published in 1985 the former in 1983. I read it in 1995 and it's amazing how much was known then. I haven't followed a cellular/genetic path to experience the evolution.
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3. MajimasEyepatchApr 2024
   Absolutely right. These basic concepts like the central dogma aren't especially hard to learn, but it's important to really understand them deeply if you want anything to make sense.

   Among textbooks, Molecular Biology of the Gene by James Watson et al. is a good starting point to understand the central dogma: DNA -> RNA -> Protein. Likewise Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts et al. for cell biology.

   An Introduction to Systems Biology by Uri Alon is good for the more mathematically inclined once you're ready to get more advanced, though you should really have a solid grasp on the fundamentals of molecular and cellular biology first.

   None of this is for the faint of heart, but it's not especially difficult either. It's unfortunate that it's hard to get hands-on experience with biology once you've graduated from college, which helps a lot to connect the dots, but there are still plenty of great resources out there.

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4. kaiwen1Apr 2024
   Molecular Biology of the Cell is one of my all-time favorite books. Read it 15 years ago, rereading it now in the 7th (newest) edition. If someone has read the books you've listed, done the exercise and has a comprehensive understanding of the material, but no biology degree, only a passion for learning about cell biology, are there job options to keep feeding that passion?
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5. kaiwen1Mar 2024
   This is wonderful! If you want to go deeper, I highly recommend the textbook "Molecular Biology of the Cell". I discovered it in a bookstore 20 years ago and it consumed me for months. Every paragraph was a revelation. After hearing me speak in awe of this book for years, my wife recently bought the latest (7th) edition, which we're now reading together and I'm still mesmerized. Nothing compares to the astonishing complexity of a cell.
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6. jrybNov 2023
   They do have energy producing mechanisms: cells!

   The key to understanding this is, in my mind, to not put labels on things, and just consider how information encoded in genomes moves around. Also, all of the interactions that I've read about between virophages and phages occur inside of a prokaryotic cell, where there are plenty of molecules for making more viruses and powering chemical reactions.

   Honestly I'm not sure what to recommend you in terms of books. When I was a biology undergrad I had a biochemistry textbook that, at the time, I found to be mostly inscrutable. Then as a grad student I was going back through it to refresh my memory for a class I was TAing and remarked, "this is incredibly straightforward and clear" and immediately realized how much I must have changed. All of this to say - learning biology via text is pretty hard and takes a long time. I've never used it, but smart biology (https://www.smart-biology.com/) looks very promising.

   I think the biggest way that the field of biology fails humanity is that we communicate relationships between these incredibly complex machines with little cartoons of a circle and triangle bumping into each other or something like that. Once you get the intuition for how things behave on a molecular level it's a super efficient means of communicating, but for people joining the field it's just brutal.

   But if you want to understand viruses you really need to understand biochemistry and molecular biology first. If you already have that background then I can ask around for book recommendations, if not, I would try smart biology, or if you really want a book, Lehninger is the classic biochemistry book, Alberts Molecular Biology of the cell is the classic cell biology book. These aren't intro books though, you typically wouldn't get them until your 2nd or 3rd year in a university program. It's easy to find free PDFs on the internet if you find their outrageous prices a bit high.

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