HHMI BULLETIN N OV . ’08 VOL .21 • NO.04 • Howard Hu Howard BULLETIN g hes Medical Institute HHMI • www.hhmi.or g Janet Iwasa / Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Derivative Works 3.0 United States License GettinG a Grasp on how life first emerGed on earth takes scientific knowledGe and creative A Cell Is Born thinkinG. colorful pictures can’t hurt either. while a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of HHMI investiGator Jack szostak, Janet iwasa created a website of animations and illustrations portrayinG the molecular oriGins of life—like this protocell, composed only of a membrane Meiosis and rna. the website won honorable mention Chromosomal movement has long in the interactive media cateGory of Science maGazine’s 2008 visualization challenGe. to see captivated scientists. New research only more of iwasa’s portrayals of the first cells, adds to the fascination. visit www.explorinGoriGins.orG. 4000 Jones Bridge Road vol. Breaking News Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815-6789 21 Robert Tjian to Lead Institute www.hhmi.org no. / Nobel Prize Goes to Roger Tsien 04 54 Dynamic sacs called vesicles snake throughout cells, moving molecules from one place to another. Pamela Björkman’s lab has used electron tomography imaging to reveal in dramatic detail how a vesicle (blue) moves antibodies (gold) through the cell of a newborn rat, which must absorb antibodies from its mother’s milk to establish its own immune system. turn-of-the-century science The first findings on meiosis—the divvying up of the genetic material in a cell—fasci- nated cell biologists and offered new evidence on one of the most pressing scientific questions of the previous century: how individual variation is passed between gener- ations. Evolution had been described by both Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, though the details of their theories diverged, and neither could offer an explanation for exactly how inheritance worked at a physical level. But late in the 19th century, thanks to observations of sea urchin eggs undergoing meiosis, biolo- gist August Weissmann was able to declare that Darwin’s theory was closer to reality than Lamarck’s. Here, biologist Cyril Dean Darlington describes the impact of this early meiosis research. The story begins with Oscar Hertwig’s discovery in 1875 that fertilization, the basis of sexual reproduction, concerns the nucleus and therefore also the chromosomes. The ideas which have arisen from this discovery in the century which has passed have some of them made a great stir. Others have gone on their way to return like comets after many years. And others have disappeared like the paper of Farmer & Moore in 1905 which left us the word meiosis and a few forgotten fallacies. The idea from which all our work springs was, of course, Weismann’s prediction that meiosis in both sexes must be the universal complement of fertilization. But even this had a chequered career. His statement to the British Association in 1887 was at once understood. But it carried with it a rider whose meaning has only gradually unfolded itself. The rider was to the effect that the sexual process had succeeded because it was ‘a source of individual variability.’ Recombination of the materials of heredity, which we may call ids or genes, germ plasm or chromosomes, allowed indi- viduals in later generations to expose their variation to natural selection. Weismann’s sustained purpose behind this formula was to make a clean separation between Darwin and Lamarck. The idea was novel on the face of it. But behind the face of it were concealed more implications than behind any evolutionary idea other than natural selection itself. And these implications could be grasped only piecemeal as the study of meiosis slowly revealed the mechanism of recombination and the long sequence of its causes and consequences. From the paper “Meiosis in Perspective,” C.D. Darlington, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B. Biological Science, 277:185-189 (1977). Reprinted with Rachel Rachel Gannon permission of the Royal Society of London. Wanzhong He / Björkman lab Wanzhong vol. 21 november ’o8 no. o4 DEPARTMENTS PRESIDENT’S LETTER 0 3 Behind the Name BREAKING NEWS 0 4 Biochemist Robert Tjian Elected as New Hughes President 0 5 Roger Tsien Wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry CENTRIFUGE 0 6 Black Dogs 0 7 A Wiki Whiz Kid 0 8 Under the Mango Tree UPFRONT 1 0 A Pattern Emerges 1 2 Back on Track: Saving Lives 1 4 Restoring Astrocytes’ Protective Nature PERSPECTIVES AND OPINIONS 4 0 Nancy Andrews 4 2 Elizabeth Nabel 4 4 Q&A – A small group of scientists are beginning to post their lab notebooks and draft research papers on open-access Websites for comment and discussion. Would you greet this so-called Science 2.0 with open arms or major skepticism? CHRONICLE Science Education 4 6 Hook ’Em with Science Institute News 4 8 HHMI Funds Renovations at Two Research Facilities 4 9 Alison F. Richard Elected as HHMI Trustee 4 9 HHMI Donates $1 Million for Flood Relief Lab Book 5 0 Extreme Makeover: Pancreas Edition 5 1 Turning Growth On and Off, One Cell at a Time 5 2 Guiding Motor Neurons Ask a Scientist 5 3 Where do new genes come from? Up Close 5 4 Full Tilt Transport Nota Bene 56 News of recent awards and other notable achievements OBSERVATIONS Turn-of-the-Century Science FEATURES 16 22 28 34 The Meiosis Dance Lab Lessons Carving Out Science 2.0: You Researchers are finally If hands-on is the way to Her Niche Say You Want a learning the molecular steps teach science, hands-on in Judith Kimble’s Revolution? of a chromosome shuffle a real scientist’s lab has got engaged style has made The collaborative online tools that’s been watched from to be the ultimate, right? for a vibrant career people are using in other parts afar for centuries. More programs think so, unraveling mechanisms of their lives, such as Facebook, [COVER STORY] and they are fi nding ways that control stem-cell YouTube, and blogs, are roiling to make it happen for high development—and some the disciplined world of school students. interesting airplane chats. scientifi c communication. VISIT THE BULLETIN ONLINE FOR ADDITIONAL CONTENT AND ADDED FEATURES: www.hhmi.org/bulletin COVER IMAGE: BRENDAN MONROE contributors An artist who digs through science to find loose references for his paintings and sculptures, Brendan Monroe (cover and “The Meiosis Dance,” page 16) often weaves tiny organisms among large blob-like figures and interconnected red cellular shapes in his work. Monroe lives (1) in Berkeley, California, where he also indulges his love of gardening. (1) After seven years as a newspaper reporter, andrea Widener (“Lab Lessons,” page 22) need- ed a break. So she joined the Peace Corps, serving in The Gambia, West Africa, where she learned to carry water on her head and bargain ferociously for plastic buckets. Now back in the u.S., she’s enjoying indoor plumbing, electricity, and her job as a science writer at HHMI. (2) (3) (2) Photographs from Kevin J. MiyazaKi (“Carving out Her Niche,” page 28) have appeared in Money, Travel + Leisure, ReadyMade, and BusinessWeek, among other publications. Miyazaki loves airports, doesn’t watch television, and secretly relishes the wedding section of the Sun- day New York Times. In his spare time, he photographs closed-down fast-food restaurants. (3) John davenport (“Full Tilt Transport,” page 54) whiled away his 20s in a dark closet watch- ing enzymes move, one at a time. Hungry for a wider field of view, he forsook the lab for a ca- reer in science writing. Formerly an associate editor of Science Magazine’s Website on aging (4) research, he spends his days hanging out with brain scientists at Brown university and writes about all manner of science from his rural Rhode Island home. (4) HHMI TRUSTEES HHMI OFFICERS & S E n ior a d v isors James A. Baker, III, Esq. Thomas R. Cech, Ph.D. / President Senior Partner / Baker & Botts Craig A. Alexander / V.P. & General Counsel Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky Peter J. Bruns, Ph.D. / V.P. for Grants & Special Programs Senior International Partner David A. Clayton, Ph.D. / V.P. for Research Operations WilmerHale Joseph D. Collins / V.P. for Information Technology Joseph L. Goldstein, M.D. Jack E. Dixon, Ph.D. / V.P. & Chief Scientific Officer Regental Professor & Chairman, Department of Molecular Genetics Joan S. Leonard, Esq. / Senior Counsel to the President University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas Avice A. Meehan / V.P. for Communications & Public Affairs Hanna H. 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