After 30 years of programming and with all the annoying AI madness I felt like learning something entirely new.

With biohacking being a huge interest of mine for the past couple of years, I decided to take on the challenge to learn the basics of biology.

Started with Harvard’s Mitochondria online course on EdX and I’m now close to finishing the more advanced Principles of Biochemistry course, also by Harvard. Both of them are free but you have to pay for the certificate.

When I very first started, it all felt like messy spaghetti code, but as I made further progress sparks of understanding start to appear.

Everything seemed so simple! if insulin goes up then XYZ happens. Easy stuff. I started thinking of a class structure for enzymes and molecules involved, a schema of sorts. The connections between them forming a workflow of connected nodes with molecules being passed back-and-forth.

As I was learning the role of insulin and glucagon I went as far as creating a mini-simulation of cell glycolysis in Python (using Cursor..) where I could start with different levels of glucose, oxygen, and other molecules, and see how ATP was being generated (and yes, I’m aware there are Python packages for cell modelling - this was just a little playground to get my head around the basics).

Playground to get my head around cell metabolism. Fun experiment, but utterly the wrong way of looking at it

But lo and behold.. as I continued with the learning material, I realized I actually didn’t understand anything at all. Most molecules, enzymes and hormones I had learned about so far seemed to not only have 10 other functions and capabilities, but they also could trigger the exact opposite thing under a different context!

So the whole thing went back to being nasty spaghetti code, and this time around, I felt like there was no way to wrap it together. I was in desperate need of a new mental model.

This is an ongoing process and I haven’t even scratched the surface. But as I go further into the study material, new glimpses of understanding are appearing again.

It seems like the way to learn biology is not to look at each “entity” (e.g. enzyme, molecule) as something that converts “x” into “y”, but as infrastructure that our bodies use and adapt for multiple purposes as part of a broader complex system.

For example, think of your favorite cafe. A cafe is not just a “function” that receives as inputs “people, coffee grounds and energy” and generates as output “a person holding a cup of coffee”.

There is infinite more depth and optionality to a cafe. For starters, the owner could decide to sell other items any day of the week, including something that’s never been made before.

A cafe is also a place where people can socialize or work. Cafe business has systemic effects in the entire economy, affecting things like tax collection, supply chains and farming.

Lastly, during a natural disaster, a cafe could be used as a community shelter, and during war, as a snipers hideout.

You get the point..

As I continue to learn biology (which has been fascinating and intrinsically rewarding!) it’s become clear that every molecule or process has multiple functions and capabilities depending on the context, and that even in the most studied corners of the field, new behaviors are constantly being found.