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The seven deadly curs’d sins … Intemperance

1997; Elsevier BV; Volume: 7; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0960-9822(06)00126-6

1879-0445

Uncle Syd,

Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Research

Dear Willie, Thank you for the case of wine which was delivered today; what a splendid birthday present! You certainly know my weakness and I hope that there will always be a Beaune of contention between us. I often think I should have taken up the molecular biology of the grape rather than messing about with worms and fish. There could have been an Institute de Oenologie Moleculaire and we might even have seen some biotechnology companies with names like Chateautech, Vintage Genes and Sham Pain Pharmaceuticals. I have noticed that some of the best genomes for study come from things that are good to eat; perhaps there is still time to found Gourmet Genetics Inc. with oyster and lobster genome programmes. We are being pressed today not to indulge in excesses and to do everything in moderation. It seems that we have all inherited large numbers of terrible genes from our parents and that all the pleasures of life are very bad for us. Have you noticed how every new discovery of a bad gene is announced with screaming headlines and how the scientists involved behave with cautious delight in television interviews? I wake up every morning in fear that I will be told that I have a gene that makes me sensitive to the traces of hafnium in Pinot Noir grapes. The current trend to give genes a bad name distracts people from the fact that a lot of their genes are pretty good. Some years ago I found that every family has its Uncle Frank. He is the one who smoked 60 cigarettes and drank two bottles of vodka every day of his life from the age of four, had six wives and innumerable girlfriends, and raced Ferrari cars. Unfortunately he was killed in a mountaineering accident at the age of 92 in the Himalayas. I have tried, in vain, to interest scientists and politicians in starting the Uncle Frank Genome Project so we can get hold of all these good genes. I have been told that the Uncle Franks of this world are only lucky; but I don’t accept that as a satisfactory answer. The genetics of luck seems like a good subject to me, and much better than the genetics of alcoholism or homosexuality. Actually, the association of intemperance with alcoholism is relatively recent and its extension to sodium, cholesterol, animal fat and tobacco is very modern. In general, intemperance means the pursuit of any passion to excess. Science, as a passion, cannot easily be practised in moderation and, anyway, who is going to judge what is excessive. You will remember that Mendel was accused of fiddling his results because it could be shown that the precise numbers he reported were very unlikely. I’m certain that he did not invent the numbers, but he certainly knew when to stop counting. I can see him saying to himself that there is no point in carrying these experiments to excess, that one has to stop somewhere and that now seems as good a place as any. Perhaps if he had continued he would have noticed something interesting about the numbers and would have become the father of statistics and forgotten about genetics. It is statistics that tells us whether we have done enough. Most molecular biologists know nothing about statistics and care even less. I was awoken from my slumbers at a lecture the other day by hearing the words Student's t test, which most people in the audience thought had something to do with sampling the refreshments in the college canteen. The speaker needed this test because he was studying molecules using the electron microscope that he could hardly see — the molecules, not the microscope — and he needed something objective to tell him that he had distinguished his faint objects from the noisy background. My molecular biologist colleagues, however, felt that if this was what it took to get a result, the speaker would be strongly advised to drop his line of research for one where a clone is a clone and a gel is a gel. I am almost ashamed to confess that I have been learning statistics again. The first time I did so was 40 years ago, when my teacher was someone who was trapped in Denmark during the war and spent four years in an internment camp spinning a coin and using the results for an experimental introduction to probability theory. Curiously enough, his strings of H's and T's remind me of the gene sequences that I am studying now. I have collected enormous numbers of sequences, found some very interesting things, but don’t know where to stop. Every time I think this must surely be the end, I reach for the computer and find some new little twist, and occassionally something important. I have learnt to be very wary of running the standard programs, which I think conceal important features so that I can’t see the wood for the phylogenetic trees. We seem, somehow, to have got the wrong combination in joining artificial intelligence with human stupidity. I would like to see more people doing it the other way round. Well dear boy, here I sit, a glass of Pommard in one hand, intemperately tapping the keys of my computer with the other. I have promised myself this will be the very last sequence and I will then sit down and write my paper. As ever, Uncle Syd