TOUCHING BASE “One doesn’t expect to experience things like this in one’s TOUCHING life. I found it totally spooky....It’s kind of like taking a public bath.” —Francis Collins, as quoted by the Washington Post, after watching a BASE performance of The Sequence, Paul Mullin’s stage play about the race QUESTIONS? THOUGHTS? IDEAS? to sequence the human genome. e-mail us at [email protected] What’s in a name? Mutant of the Month The first annual Keystone Systems and Biology meeting was held jointly with the Proteomics and Bioinformatics conference in Keystone, Colorado, “Would it be of any 8–13 April 2005. David Sabatini, Albert-László Barabási and Marc Vidal use, now,” thought led this successful meeting of over 400 participants. Several years ago, Alice, “to speak Vidal and Barabási recognized the need for a conference bringing together to this mouse? the leaders from all relevant areas in the emerging field of systems biol- Everything is so ogy (below), to facilitate interdisciplinary discussions and collaborations. out-of-the-way down They used the name ‘Systems and Biology’ to point out that the multidis- here, that I should ciplinary efforts made in the name of systems biology do not represent think very likely it a separate field in biology, but rather a new approach that will in time be can talk: at any rate recognized as integral to understanding biological systems. The discus- there’s no harm sion of the importance of names continued with respect to the names of http://www.nature.com/naturegenetics in trying.” So she Anna Pelling and Kathryn Cheah departments, as participants expressed concern at belonging to depart- began: “O Mouse, do ments with names that did not directly reflect their work. Others expressed you know any way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming concern that being a part of a ‘Systems’ department sowed confusion both about here, O Mouse!” Unfortunately, Alice’s query (as reported internally and externally as to the wide scope of research included, as well in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) would have as the impression that integration with biology departments could be fallen on the deaf ears of the yellow submarine mouse (Ysb). fostered through more traditional departmental names. OB The mammalian inner ear comprises five regions important for balance and one for hearing. All these sensory regions require SOX2, a transcription factor that is essential for embryogenesis. Ysb mutant mice are defective in both balance and hearing (Nature 4434,34 1031–1035; 2005). The mammalian inner ear does not regenerate when hearing is lost due to damage to the sensory hair cells. But these deaf and dizzy mice may offer hope. 2005 Nature Publishing Group Group 2005 Nature Publishing Because Sox2 is a marker of neural stem cells and acts in sensory © progenitor cell specification, it may be an important influence operating in embryonic stem cells when they differentiate into cells resembling the hair cells of the inner ear. MA How we got here National Geographic, IBM, the Waitt Family Foundation and population geneticist Spencer Wells recently announced The Genographic Project, a five-year effort to collect DNA from hundreds of thousands of indi- viduals (including indigenous populations) for the purpose of creating a global database of human genetic variation, anthropology and migratory patterns. Wells, known for his work on Y chromosome diversity in cen- tral Asian populations and his book The Journey of Man, will conduct the field research with a group of investigators at 10 research centers around the world. The central scientific goal is to fill in the gaps of our migratory history, and the project is being described as a collaboration with indig- enous populations, as their DNA holds many of the secrets of human Cartoon by Sean Taverna prehistory. The general public is invited to participate as well—for $99 you can submit a cheek swab sample and learn about your ancestors’ own migratory history. Proceeds from the sale of the participation kits will fund a legacy project to support education and cultural preservation projects among the indigenous groups. More information can be found Touching Base written by Myles Axton, Orli Bahcall and Alan Packer. at http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/. AP NATURE GENETICS | VOLUME 37 | NUMBER 6 | JUNE 2005 569.