I am working on this assignment where we answer questions from this article we a

Question

I am working on this assignment where we answer questions from this article we are reading. The last question is: Can you find the cell biology error on the first page of the article?

Here is the first page of the article, can you please find and explain where there is an error? Help would be GREATLY APPRECIATED

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8 October 2003

All living matter is made up of cells. A single human being has as many as the stars in a galaxy, about one hundred thousand million. The various cells – e.g. muscle cells, kidney cells and nerve cells – act together in an intricate system in each one of us. Through pioneering discoveries concerning the water and ion channels of cells, this year’s Nobel Laureates Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon, have contributed to fundamental chemical knowledge on how cells function. They have opened our eyes to a fantastic family of molecular machines: channels, gates and valves all of which are needed for the cell to function.



Molecular channels through the cell wall
To maintain even pressure in the cells it is important that water can pass through the cell wall. This has been known for a long time. The appearance and function of these pores, remained for a long time as one of the classical unsolved problems of biochemistry. It was not until around 1990 that Peter Agre discovered the first water channel. Like so much else in the living cell, it was all about a protein.

Water molecules are not the only entities that pass into and out of the cell. For thousands of millions of cells to be able to function as something other than one large lump, coordination is required. Thus communication between the cells is necessary. The signals sent in and between cells consist of ions or small molecules. These start cascades of chemical reactions that cause our muscles to tense, our eyes to water – indeed, that control all our bodily functions. The signals in our brains also involve such chemical reactions. When we stub a toe this starts a signal moving up towards the brain. Along a chain of nerve cells, through interaction between chemical signals and ion currents, information is conveyed from cell to cell like a baton in a relay race.

It was in 1998 that Roderick MacKinnon succeeded for the first time in showing what ion channels look like at atomic level – an achievement which, together with Agre’s discovery of water channels, opened up entirely new research areas in biochemistry and biology.

The medical consequences of Agre’s and MacKinnon’s discoveries are also important. A number of diseases can be attributed to poor functioning in the water and ion channels of the human body. With the help of fundamental knowledge of what they look like and how they work, there are now new possibilities for developing new and more effective pharmaceuticals.

Explanation / Answer

It would appear the reference "cell wall" is misplaced. Cell membrane would be appropriate here. Peter Agre having played the role in the discovery of the aquaporin being a hematologist working with red blood cells didn't have much to do with cell walls in reference to his discovery.

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