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Contrary to popular belief, the discovery of the chemical structure
and biological function of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) did not occur within the
past several years and was not accomplished by a small select group of scientists.
In fact, the building of Watson and Crick's famous double helix model of the DNA
molecule was an achievement whose lineage could be traced back through the previous
century. This fascinating and highly readable account does just that, beginning
with Friedrich Miescher's isolation of "nuclein" in 1869 and culminating
with Marshall Nierenberg's formulation of the genetic code almost 100 years later.
Why did information about DNA's structure and function lag so
far behind its isolation as a substance? The main reason, of course, was the inadequacy
of the nineteenth and early twentieth century technology for the study of substances
at a molecular level. A student in the most basic high school laboratory today
has far more sophisticated equipment -- such as a microscope without optical aberrations
-- than Miescher ever had. Each new advance in analytic techniques -- staining,
centrifugation, X-ray crystallography -- opened up new areas of information and
suggested further possibilities for research. But this
is more than an academic history. It is also the objectively told story of the
researchers themselves -- their motivations, prejudices, egotism, loyalties --
in short, all the human factors that sometimes served to spur research on and
sometimes impeded it. Like people everywhere, they made miscalculations, forgot
important data, overlooked obvious techniques, or became bogged down in a rigid
way of thinking. They had flashes of insight while commuting or lying in bed with
a cold. Chance or mutual friends brought together some of the century's most effective
research teams; personal animosities divided others. The wealth of anecdotal material
gathered here makes A Century of DNA as exciting to the interested layman
as to the scientist. Through our knowledge of DNA has
taken many giants leaps over the past 100 years, it is obvious that we are still
at the threshold of understanding how life replicates itself. A final chapter
outlines some of the most promising research going on today and its implications
for the future. As Francis Crick so tantalizingly summed up, "There will
inevitably be a proportion of novel and significant advances the nature of which
we can hardly guess. In short, the whole field is likely to be even more fascinating
in the year 2000 than it is today." Franklin
H. Portugal is Associate Managing Editor of the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences. Jack S. Cohen is on the staff of the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development. |
