An evil scientist’s evil lab assistant shoots you with a laser beam that erases all of the RNA in your cells, and removes your c
ells’ ability to create new RNA. Later on in the day, you trip and scrape your knee. Do you think that the scrape in your knee will ever heal? Why or why not.
That scrape on our knee will never heal and the blood loss due to bleeding will never be replaced. This is because RNA is inside of cells and without the ability to create new RNA you cannot replace missing cells. So the scrape will never heal if your cells cannot create new RNA.
Matthias Jacob Schleiden was a German botanist who, with Theodor Schwann, cofounded the cell theory. In 1838 Schleiden defined the cell as the basic unit of plant structure, and a year later Schwann defined the cell as the basic unit of animal structure.
