God’s Fingerprints? See the Curious Shape of This Key Human Protein
Have you ever wondered if there is evidence of the divine within the biological makeup of our human form? If God really did create us, and if in Christ “all things hold together” as scripture attests, then wouldn’t it be possible for Him to could leave a mark in our very cells to show us He was behind the work of art we call life?
Well, that is exactly what evangelist Louie Giglio sought to explore in a timeless clip that recently resurfaced on Facebook. Giglio talks (video below) of meeting a molecular biologist following a preaching event in Texas. As the two got chatting, the man revealed something absolutely extraordinary to Giglio that links the human body to the glory of God in Christ.
“I said I’m on my way back home to Atlanta Georgia. Gonna be preaching the next two Sunday’s,” Giglio recalls telling the biologist. When Louie was asked what he was preaching on, he answered: “The series is on the glory of God and the human body. He says ‘that’s really amazing because I’m a molecular biologist at the University down the road.'”
After hearing a brief outline of his sermon, the biologist wanted to know what Louie was going to use as his grand finale to hammer home the point of God being glorified through our biological structures.
“He said ‘what’s your big left hook?'” explained Giglio.
Louie had nothing.
“He said ‘your left hook is laminin!'”
Giglio, completely baffled, had absolutely no idea what the scientist was talking about. What was “laminin”?
“He says ‘Louie, it’s a cell adhesion molecule; a protein molecule.’ ‘Louie, cells organize into certain molecular structures and that determines what protein they are. ‘”
What does all that mean?
“There are between 10 and 60,000 proteins in the human body,” Giglio explains.
“One of them is a cell adhesion molecule. It’s organized into this certain structure. That tells the cell what its job is in the body. He said ‘It’s like the steel they put in the concrete when they lay the foundations. It’s holding your membranes together. It’s the glue of the human body, Louie, it’s laminin. You’ve gotta tell them about laminin.'”
But it wasn’t enough just to talk about it.
“You’ve gotta see laminin!” the biologist urged.
Louie went home and googled what it looked like. This is what appeared on his computer screen:
“Now, c’mon, that’s crazy!” Giglio said as the picture is revealed to the audience. “The stuff that holds our bodies together is in the perfect shape of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Everything holds together in Jesus Christ,” declares Giglio.
So, what exactly is laminin?
Well, according to GotQuestions.com, laminin is a protein that acts as “glue” in the human body:
“Laminin is the name used for a family of proteins that serve many useful functions in biology. The most important property of laminin’s is their ability to easily bind to each other and to other proteins. This makes laminin a critical means of holding tissues and organs together. It has been described as the protein equivalent of glue,” the website explains.
Despite the tremendously interesting points made by Giglio, others have sought to refute his claims and debunk the idea of laminin being shaped perfectly like a cross:
“From a practical standpoint, the shape of laminin is neither unique nor extraordinarily similar to a cross. When drawn as a two-dimensional diagram, with three short arms and one long, it certainly looks like a crucifix. However, in actual three-dimensional space, laminins are not clean, flat, t-shaped structures,” GotQuestions.com continues in their explainer article.
“They have also been described as looking like flowers, jacks, or pyramids. The t-shape itself is neither complex nor uncommon in nature. Beyond that, there are many simple shapes found in nature that could be correlated to other, non-Christian spiritual beliefs.
The author goes further, arguing that many other elements of our biology point toward a much darker spiritual meaning:
“Viewed from the top, the DNA helix looks similar to a yin yang symbol from Chinese philosophy. Other molecules in DNA are shaped like pentagrams, a common shape in Satanic art.”
Indeed, in response to the evangelical community’s excitement over the shape of laminin, others in the scientific field have been keen to point out some of the destructive elements of the protein itself. As Magnus von Knebel Doeberitz, M.D explains:
“Laminin is the predominant noncollagenous glycoprotein in the basement membrane beneath epithelial surfaces. Various laminin isoforms play an important role in physiologic and pathologic processes, including cancer progression and tumor cell dissemination. The interaction of cancer cells with laminin appears to be a key event in invasion and dissemination of tumor cells.”
