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And staying with the theme of bringing the history of science to a wider audience, I’d like to give a big thanks to Jen Farquharson, editor of ‘Viewpoint’ the magazine for the British Society for the History of Science for the invitation to give this interview in the latest edition – I really enjoyed thinking about these questions…
I was surprised to learn from a recent newspaper article (‘Leeds’ drunken Otley run goes from high spirits to public menace’ Robyn Vinter, ‘The Observer’ 21st August) that people travel from as far as London to partake in what has become the notorious ‘Otley Run’ pub crawl in the suburb of Headingley, Leeds . But I should point out that (cricket aside) there are good reasons to visit Headingley other than to vomit from pub to pub dressed as Mario or Bananaman, such as to discover its little known but crucial role in the unravelling of the chemistry of both insulin and DNA, the genetic molecule…
Pioneering scientist William Astbury ‘The Man in the Monkeynut Coat’ would have been delighted at recent news that #DeepMind #AlphaFold AI has broken bold new ground in biology by predicting the shape of over 200 million proteins. And I’m equally delighted that new paperback edition of ‘The Man in the Monkeynut Coat’ is pubilshed today by Oxford University Press telling the story of this forgotten pioneer who first blazed the trail in the field of solving protein structure. Understanding the molecular origami of proteins may well have all begun with Astbury’s work on humble wool fibre, & a coat woven from monkeynuts, but it’s gone on to explain how haemoglobin carries oxygen and how a vaccine can block the SARS-CoV2 virus from binding to human cells – to name but a few…
Open any biology textbook and you’ll see Gregor Mendel hailed as being the founding father of modern genetics, a lone genius whose experiments crossing pea plants was so far ahead of its time that it lay neglected for 40 years. But if Mendel could somehow be whisked out of his monastery garden and brought into the early 21st century, would he recognise any of these accolades? Or would he just be flattered – but utterly baffled?
So what exactly was Mendel up to with those peas? Was he really the founding father of modern genetics? Or is this a largely mythologised account constructed from the vantage point of the present day? This was just one of many themes around Mendel debated by historians and scientists at the ‘Mendel at 200’ #Mendel200 meeting recently held by the MRC Integrated Epidemiology Unit of the University of Bristol. The Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner once said that Mendel has become obscured in a ‘legendary mist’ and a presentation called ‘Clearing the Mist Around Mendel’ I explored how the ongoing task of producing new translations of Mendel’s work from the original German into English can hopefully help to clear some of those myths – and mists.
And those with very strong feelings about what Mendel was up to with his peas might be interested to know that, in German, the word ‘Mist’ has a very different meaning to that in English – but one that in the context of ‘Clearing the Mist Around Mendel’ is perhaps nevertheless very apt…