NJS: an Interdisciplinary Journal Winter 2020 1
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NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal Winter 2020 1 NJS Presents Invited Talks In this Issue: Now that we have a State Microbe, where do we go from here? By Dr. John Warhol DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14713/njs.v5i1.187 This lecture on the state microbe was initially delivered at the annual fall meeting of the Medical History Society of New Jersey on Thursday, October 10, 2019 at the Nassau Club of Princeton. Select images from the presentation are included and are courtesy of the author unless otherwise noted. Introduction: We Have A State Microbe! Thank you for having me here. The question before us today is: “Now that we have a State Microbe, what on Earth are we going to do with it?” First, some background. Number one, we have a State Microbe. Number two, getting it was a big deal. It was a big deal because in the entire history of the known universe, “Lots of stuff has happened a bunch of times.” Galaxies have been created and destroyed; civilizations grew to great heights and collapsed into dust; babies have been born, billions of times. There are some things that happen only rarely, like a really good cup of coffee; or an easy, painless commute home. Some things, however, happen only once, like when that giant asteroid hit Mexico and killed all the dinosaurs. But more recently, precisely five months ago to this very day, for the first time in the history of the universe, a duly elected representative government of the people, by the people, and for the people declared unanimously, “We have an Official Bacterium!” NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal Winter 2020 2 The bacterium was Streptomyces griseus, and the state was New Jersey. Yes, that’s right! The New Jersey legislature enacted a law that names Strep griseus as the Official State Microbe. It joins the pantheon of other official New Jersey symbols like the Goldfinch, the Honey Bee, the Bog Turtle, and of course Square Dancing; not to mention our own dinosaur Hadrosaurus foulkii, discovered in Haddonfield. To be fair, it’s the “Official Microbe of New Jersey” not the “Official Bacterium of New Jersey,” and in the interest of transparency, it’s the second Official Microbe in the world, but the first Official Bacterium. The credit for the first Official Microbe goes to the state of Oregon, which in 2013 enacted a law that recognizes Brewer’s Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) as its Official Microbe, in honor of its $2.5 billion a year craft brew industry, and also the role of the organism in baking and genetic engineering. Why that microbe? You might ask me: “John, why did we pick Strep griseus?” And the answer can be found in a 2-minute elevator pitch that I had the honor of making to lots of politicians on a bunch of different occasions. The 2-minute elevator pitch goes something like this: “New Jersey absolutely positively needs to have its own official state microbe, and here’s why! New Jersey is home to the microorganism known as Streptomyces griseus. Strep griseus produces the antibiotic streptomycin. Streptomycin is: the first antibiotic after penicillin; the first American antibiotic; and the first antibiotic to kill tuberculosis. Streptomycin changed the world. The streptomycin producing strain of Strep griseus was discovered in New Jersey, in New Brunswick, in dirt, in 1943 by Albert Schatz. Dr. Schatz was supervised by Dr. Selman Waksman, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on streptomycin, Strep griseus, and the systematic study of soil microbes. Strep griseus and streptomycin gave birth to the American antibiotic industry, an industry that employs thousands of people, starting with drug discovery and ending with clinical use in patients. Recognizing Strep griseus as the State Microbe honors NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal Winter 2020 3 the contributions of all of those people. But the bill does more than honor New Jersey scientists. It creates the opportunity to teach basic science to people; to have them learn that microbes are essential to all life on Earth; and that most of them are beneficial.” Although that talk was only 2 minutes long, it was still pretty “sciencey.” There’s an alternative message that is more memorable. It’s simply this: “Without the State Microbe, rock and roll music as we know it would not exist.” Why? Because The Beatles would not exist. Because Ringo Starr would not exist. How could this be? Well, as a kid, Ringo was sick a lot; when he was 12 he had tuberculosis. His mom took him to the Liverpool Tuberculosis Hospital where he was treated with streptomycin. He recovered fully and went on to be the drummer in the world’s most influential band. Teamwork and the Legislative Process Now, getting back to the State Microbe. Doing all this was not easy; getting a group of people to believe in something they can’t see and never heard of, was a challenge. You need a team to accomplish this, and we had a great team. Shown below are some of the people who worked on it; of course there’s me, and next to me are several Rutgers professors. The first is Jessica Lisa; she was instrumental in getting Senator Vin Gopal to sign on as a sponsor. In the middle is Doug Eveleigh, professor emeritus, who is absolutely the most important and influential person here. Doug knows everyone, and when he sends out a letter or an email, or calls other colleagues around the world and says “Hey could you help us out with this? Could you send a letter to our Senators?”, they are more than willing to agree and comply. Someone calculated that more than 60% of all microbial ecologists and industrial microbiologists were students of his; he’s just a really excellent human being and a great resource. And to his side in the red State Microbe shirt is Professor Jeff Boyd who came down and testified with us, and NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal Winter 2020 4 wrote letters, and got his students motivated to participate in the process. Not shown in this picture is the Microbiology Department Chairman, Max Haggblom, who also testified before the Senate, and was instrumental in getting the legislation passed. Some members of the State Microbe Team in the State House in Trenton: (left to right) John Warhol, Jessica Lisa, Douglas Eveleigh, Jeff Boyd. We are standing on a mosaic of New Jersey State Symbols that now needs to be updated. Photo courtesy the author. You need a team because democracy is a participatory endeavor, and you need a lot of people to participate successfully. Participation is easy, or at least it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be as easy as getting on the phone, or writing a letter in the mail and dropping it off, or sending an email. Mostly what you think happens, is like what you think happens when you send a letter to Santa, and you say, “Please Santa I’ve been really good. I want a new iPhone” or you say, “Santa I want an ‘Official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle’.” (I NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal Winter 2020 5 hope some of you remember the cultural reference there!) You think it goes straight to Santa. But in truth the pathway is more tortuous. It’s not direct. The reason it is not direct is because there’s all these people in between you and your legislator: there’s the first phone person, the second phone person, the third phone person; there’s letter openers, readers, and sorters; there’s aids and assistants; there’s constituent relation people; there’s Twitter readers and writers; all sorts of people in between you and the legislator. And all those people are there to protect the legislator from talking to people with crazy ideas like “I want a State Microbe.” The legislative process is like a big black box, and things only get accomplished when you fill that box. It’s really important to understand that 10,000 letters from individual people are much better than one letter representing 10,000 people because you need to fill that box. This is not new news; if you remember the famous song Alice’s Restaurant, Arlo Guthrie said: “If one person starts singing lyrics to Alice’s Restaurant, they will think you’re sick. If two people start singing it in harmony, they’ll think you’re married. But if 50 people a day sing it, they’ll think it’s a movement!” And they’ll take it seriously. The greater the volume of input on grassroots legislative issues, the greater your chances of success. There are many filters to pass through. NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal Winter 2020 6 One more thing that you need to know is that none of those couple of dozen people between you and your elected representative is a scientist. Can you imagine anyone who invests four years to get a hard science degree, or anyone with graduate credentials, or medical training saying, “I’m going to answer phones for my legislator!”? It simply does not happen. Where Do We Go from Here? Tell people! So now here we are, 50 slides in from the beginning, and I get to the actual topic of the talk “Now that we have a State Microbe where do we go from here?” Well the big number one thing to do is tell people. We still have around zero public awareness that we have a State Microbe. We’ve had some good press, and my colleagues and I were on TV, the radio (sorry, podcasts), printed papers, and electronic media in the US and overseas.