9
Jamie Robinson,
hunched over the low handlebars of his bright red Schwinn
ten-speed, cut through the chilly air and fallen leaves as he rode
to Princeton’s Biochemistry Department, a little nub of
architecture tacked onto the biology building. To enter, one had to
walk past dinosaur bones and mounted animal specimens discovered by
renowned biologists into a realm where test tubes and DNA were
rapidly threatening to eclipse the rudimentary practices of the
various biological disciplines. The biochemistry department was
starting to realize that molecular biology was the wave of the
future.
At one end of the
campus, the old-line biochemists fiercely defended their turf and
methodology in the chemistry building. At this end of the campus,
however, amazing things were happening, and quickly. Destined to
become world-class academics, young professors like Raju
Kucherlapati and Arnie Levine were busy unlocking the secrets of
how genes really worked.
Jamie couldn’t wait
to get to the lab each morning, realizing that he was in the middle
of a paradigm shift in scientific thinking. He couldn’t take his
mind off the pace at which molecular biology was moving, especially
last month’s landmark discovery by Montagu and Schell. Jamie
dismounted and wheeled the Schwinn’s slim tires into the metal bars
of the bike rack. He was probably the only cyclist on campus who
wore a protective plastic helmet, the strap of which he now looped
around the handlebars in his morning ritual while simultaneously
glancing down at his shirt to verify that all seven of his colored
ink pens were still neatly lined up in his pocket
protector.
His roommate found
Jamie’s habit of constantly checking his shirt pockets annoying in
the extreme, but the biochemistry major needed to sketch molecules
in his black marbleized notebook every day, and he enjoyed
color-coding the various organic groups he studied. Drawing carbon
rings, proteins, nucleic acids, alkaloids, terpenoids, and
phenolics in black and white? Unthinkable.
Jamie was the first
member of his family to go to college, having matriculated to
Princeton from a family of steel workers in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Robinsons generally worked hard, stuck close to their kin, and died
early. But Jamie had demonstrated an intellectual aptitude since
kindergarten that amazed his parents and teachers alike. “His
superior intelligence is a gift from God,” Father Ignatius had told
Mr. and Mrs. Robinson when their son was in third grade, “and you
are obligated to cherish that gift and develop it.” From then on,
Jesuits filled Jamie’s head with as much knowledge as they thought
the boy could absorb while his friends were tackling one another at
recess.
The good priests of
the Society of Jesus weren’t disappointed. Jamie’s appetite for
learning was insatiable.
Predictably, Jamie’s
aspirations extended beyond the foundry and the slag heap. He was
college bound, and despite becoming class valedictorian, he
declared his independence at the last minute, turning down a full
scholarship to Notre Dame in favor of a work-study program at
Princeton. Recognized as the prodigy that he was, he managed to get
the best of both worlds. His campus job was glassware cleaner in
Professor Kucherlapati’s lab.
“Morning, Raju,”
Jamie said, beaming upon entering his mentor’s office on the second
floor of the building, nicknamed the Mobio. In the matter of
academic protocol, Kucherlapati cut his students considerable slack
owing to the fact that his name, following the title “professor,”
had more syllables than most people could comfortably swallow. The
microbiologist was a short man with a dark complexion, black hair,
and unusually large, Ghandi-like probing eyes. Humming a wordless
acknowledgment as he looked up from a stack of graduate term
papers, he said with a slight, yet comforting, smile, “What have
you got to show me this morning … as if I don’t already
know?”
Jamie put a sheaf of
papers on the desk.
Kucherlapati
inspected them briefly, sighed in frustration, and leaned back in
his leather chair, hands clasped behind his head.
“Genomics. It’s an
interesting theoretical approach, blindly analyzing the entire
genome. Personally, I just don’t believe it will amount to anything
until we understand the basic mechanisms of how DNA works and how
proteins are made. The future, Mr. Robinson, is in somatic cell
hybridization. Now we can move human genes from one cell to
another. Devastating human illnesses, like Tay-Sachs and sickle
cell anemia are caused by a defect in a single gene. I am arrogant
enough to believe that my students will contribute to the
cutting-edge research that will one day control, and maybe even
eradicate, these diseases.”
Jamie knew that
genes were just instructions coded in the four-letter alphabet of
DNA that enabled the human body to synthesize all of the proteins
necessary for life. As Kucherlapati hinted, some diseases had been
linked to defective instructions in that DNA and early attempts at
therapy involved manufacturing and administering the gene product
at enormous expense. Kucherlapati imagined the day in which missing
or defective genes would simply be implanted.
His students
pictured him walking onto the stage in Stockholm to accept his
Nobel Prize.
Jamie had to admit
that somatic cell hybridization was interesting work, and to study
with Kucherlapati was an opportunity that any Biochemistry major
with the correctly folded proteins in his cerebral cortex would not
pass up. The brainiac from Scranton had some other ideas.
Kucherlapati might be out to save the few with rare genetic
disorders. Jamie was out to feed the world.
Jamie had produced
some astounding results in his very own dorm room, in fact. His
roommate Henry wasn’t fond of the many plants growing under
high-intensity lamps, but then Henry generally ran a blood alcohol
level that would fell a mere mortal, so things balanced out. Jamie
conducted his research well into the night while Henry either slept
off the booze or shacked up with some bimbo cheerleader behind the
screen that the incorrigible Mr. Broome unfolded so he could have
token privacy.
Jamie had all the
folding and unfolding he could handle.