The molecular Koch's postulates and surgical infection: a view forward.

The only way I know how to make sense out of the last fifty years of molecular biology is to abandon the mechanistic and atomistic ideas of the pre-DNA era and embrace a more organic, cognitive and computational view of cells and genomes. There are no units, only interactive systems. Bacteria continually pick up and process information about the environment, internal conditions and other cells to decide on appropriate biochemical and biomechanical actions. The takehome lesson of more than half a century of molecular microbiology is to recognize that bacterial information processing is far more powerful than human technology.

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