When Healing Becomes Educating, Vol. 1 - Waldorf Research Institute

primary protein structure. This fact is very important because in principle
it signifies the refutation of the central dogma of genetics: Information does
not only flow from DNA to the protein but also in the reverse direction, from protein
to DNA.
5. To continue this theme, this class of enzymes “contains” more and
even quite other information for the DNA than DNA contains for the
enzyme. Because, strictly speaking, DNA only codes structural information,
namely the information for primary protein structures. However the world
of enzymes which is connected with DNA contains structural as well as
functional information. Structurally it contains information for the
primary DNA structure, as we just said. But it also contains information
for the higher DNA structure, like the superhelix formations, as recent
topoisomerase research shows. 32 We now know that the whole double DNA
strand which is coiled up as a double helix is coiled up again in higher
helical formations. However, these superhelix formations are not rigidly
fixed, but when necessary they are changed by the organism with the help
of so-called topoisomerases. The materialization of these dynamic, higher
DNA structures is the presupposition for the function of DNA, i.e., for
gene expression. And in addition, all functions of DNA and all functions of
RNA are regulated by such specific enzymes.
But the regulator is always superordinate to what is regulated and
one has to differentiate between the two. For instance, in the regulation
of circulation one can very well distinguish the regulator valve and duct
system from the regulated fluid, and the relation of superordination and
subordina tion can be clearly discerned. The regulator is always the lawgiver,
and what is regulated is always the receiver of the law or information.
As soon as one realizes this it becomes completely clear that structurally
and func tionally the protein world is a giver of information for the world of
nucleic acids. According to this, genes are just as much the product of proteins
as proteins are the product of genes. Temporally and according to the substrate,
information flows in a very differentiated and well-coordinated way in both
directions, namely from DNA to protein and from protein to DNA.
6. One can not make the objection that it is not customary to call
proteins information carriers in this way, because it has in fact been
customary for some time. Thus the first sentence of Burgi’s introduction
to Labhart’s standard work on endocrinology (1971) reads: ‘Hormones
are chemical compounds which—when dissolved in extra-cellular fluids—
transfer information from cell to cell, and therefore serve as intercellular
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