THE A3D3 CONSULTING GROUP

During the Cell Conference at Cold Spring Harbor in 1980 - with closed-circuit television feeding the exuberant band at the pub the lastest lecture -  I had the pleasure to wander across campus with James Watson, expounding on my fascination with the interior void of the microtubule - and my developing hypothesis that within the microtubule/neurotubule, we might find  the multi-channeled network, dynamic memory and cybernetic computational elements integrating and communicating the complex cloud of sensors, template and directions that comprised the biological cell. He listened attentively and with the kindest, paternal encouragement said: "It is a wonderful idea, but it will take thirty years to prove, and I, I wouldn't base a career on it."

 For the next weeks after the conference,  I worked feverishly on an experiment to isolate the distal ends of stabilized microtubules by affixing them to micropipettes and plunging them through an artificial lipid bilayer popular in electroneurophysiology.   I measured the change in resistance and attenuation of  sinusoidal signals on microtubule collections of different average length - produced by agitation.

Then reality struck.  As it turns out for a given amount of tubulin, shorter segments increases the number of segments - which broadens the dynamic distribution:  the experiment proved little.

I moved the Microtubule Project to a smaller desk: occassionally visiting - accumulating speculations and hypotheses,- and following in unrelated work the evolution of nanotechnology and nanometer optics. 

Thirty years past.

Actin, always on the stage, has been begun starring as the principal cytoskeletal protein in filopodia.  Tubulin, indeed microtubules themselves are no longer deemed essential for the structure of 3D cellular processes.  From Cold Spring Spring, R. Dyche Mullins discourses on  "Cytoskeletal Mechanisms for Breaking Cellular Symmetry" - citied as: doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a003392
: Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol 2010;2:a003392