TY - JOUR T1 - Beyond the Gene A1 - Fox Keller, Evelyn A1 - Harel, David Y1 - 2007/11/28 N2 - This paper is a response to the increasing difficulty biologists find in agreeing upon a definition of the gene, and indeed, the increasing disarray in which that concept finds itself. After briefly reviewing these problems, we propose an alternative to both the concept and the word gene—an alternative that, like the gene, is intended to capture the essence of inheritance, but which is both richer and more expressive. It is also clearer in its separation of what the organism statically is (what it tangibly inherits) and what it dynamically does (its functionality and behavior). Our proposal of a genetic functor, or genitor, is a sweeping extension of the classical genotype/phenotype paradigm, yet it appears to be faithful to the findings of contemporary biology, encompassing many of the recently emerging—and surprisingly complex—links between structure and functionality. JF - PLOS ONE JA - PLOS ONE VL - 2 IS - 11 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0001231 SP - e1231 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0001231 ER -