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Harvey Lodish explains how research on "lower" organisms has provided insights into, and facilitated development of therapies for, several human diseases.

Comprehensive studies of genes and proteins from many organisms are giving us an extraordinary documentation of the history of life. We share with other eukaryotes (organisms with nucleated cells) thousands of individual genes and proteins, all as a result of our shared evolutionary history.

Lodish points out that studies on yeasts and starfish provided profound insights into the process by which cells "decide" to divide, and this in turn has led to profound insights into aberrancies in cell division during human cancers. Whitehead Institute studies on growing hematopoietic stem cells (the cells that give rise to all red and white blood cells and immune system cells) were done first in the mouse and then extended into humans. Lodish explains how these experiments and insights are only possible because all cells in all organisms have a common evolutionary origin.