November 16, 2017 Thursday
Bedtime Story
BLAST Detects P1 Phage Sequence in Spacers
So what did Mojica find when he ran the
spacer sequences spacer parts of the repeat-spacer array of CRISPR genes
through the BLAST program?
One of the spacers in his CRISPR locus that
he had sequenced from a strain of E. coli matched the sequence of a P1 phage
that infected other E. coli strains.
It was also known that the strain that he
was working with and from which he had isolated the spacer sequence was
resistant to P1 phage.
Aha, and that my friends is an eureka
moment in science!
Mojica of course did not stop with just
that.
He was now injected with a gush of natural
adrenaline and with its associated high.
He continued to work on the spacers and fed
sequences of 4500 more spacers into the BLAST program that whole week.
Of the 4500 spacers, 88 showed similarity
to known sequences.
Two thirds of the 88 matched either with
viruses or conjugate plasmids that were related to microbes carrying the
spacers.
The lab mates celebrated the findings with
cognac and then went on to write the paper.
Remember mon ami, doing experiments has no
meaning unless one publishes the data and findings in reputed peer-reviewed
journal, preferably a Western English one.
For them it was top class stuff, the stuff
that makes history but to their utter shock and dismay when they send their
paper to Nature, it got rejected.
Ridiculously enough, the reason for
rejection according to the editor of Nature, was there was nothing novel in the
discovery as the essential idea was already known.
The editor did not even bother to send the
paper for peer review.
This was in November 2003.
This mon ami is the real truth of
scientific research that I too personally encountered in my brief research
stint in the land of fundamental science and research - meticulous,
pain-staking years of work in lab which is often unbefitting for most journals
to consider for publishing.
Even if published, most work will bring no
reward or recognition.
As if this was not bad, another rejection
followed from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this time in
January 2004.
The reason cited for dismissal was that the
paper was lacking in sufficient “novelty and importance.”
This was followed by two more rejections
from journals Molecular Microbiology and Nucleic Acid Research.
A seminal work was accompanied with
rejection after rejection from the top scientific journals!
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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