Interview with Wolpert

[DMB]

...and discussion of his new book on cells.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5986558.ece

It was, Lewis Wolpert admits, a rather pretentious thing to say. The renowned biologist and author was at a European scientific meeting with colleagues when a doctor delegate asked him what he was researching. Gastrulation, Wolpert replied. The doctor's declaration of ignorance was briskly met with: “It is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation which is truly the most important time in your life.” The quote was published by a colleague, printed on posters - one is pinned to the kitchen door in Wolpert's garden flat in North London - and has trailed him around ever since.

[Ray Moscow]

Yeah, I just read that quote about gastrulation in Dawkins' A River out of Eden last week.

But he's got a lot of other interesting things to say, too. I liked his Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (http://www.amazon.com/Six-Impossible-Things-Before-Breakfast/dp/0393064492).

[DMB]

Posting to add a "popular" artilce by Wolpert:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6028063.ece

Knowing the human genome will tell us what proteins cells can make, because the coding regions can be identified, but it will not easily tell us when or where they will be made in the developing embryo. This depends on the control regions of genes, which cannot be identified in the genome without much more research. In addition, there will be proteins whose function is still unknown.

The future will be research into determining what the sequence of nucleotides tells us about cell behaviour and the complex interactions in the cells, from DNA to proteins. And what the proteins do.