November 18, 2017 Saturday
Bedtime Story
The Three Papers of 2005
Before we move on, I wish to briefly go
through the three publications that came out in 2005 and were nearly identical
in their basic premises.
I am doing this so that we get a feel of
them.
The first of these three papers was
published in the February month of 2005 in the Journal of Molecular Evolution
by the team of Francisco Mojica titled “Intervening sequences of regularly
spaced prokaryotic repeats derive from foreign genetic elements”.
We had seen earlier how pitifully Mojica
had struggled to get this paper published.
In the abstract of the paper, it states:
“Here we show that CRISPR spaces derive
from preexisting sequences, either chromosomal or within transmissible genetic
elements such as bacteriophages and conjugative plasmids.
Remarkably, these extrachromosomal elements
fail to infect the specific spacer-carrier strain, implying a relationship
between CRISPR and immunity against targeted DNA.”
These are bold statements indeed made for
the first time with accompanying experimental evidence.
After reading these crucial lines of the
abstract of the paper it makes complete sense why Mojica was in a hurry to
publish.
He knew that it would not be too far when
other labs would very soon make the connection.
The fear of getting scooped by others was
real and would be tragic in this case as it was a project that he had been
pursuing for more than a decade.
He was absolutely right as the next paper
was published just next month in March 2005 in the journal Microbiology.
He had by a whisker made himself to be the
first to report.
The second paper was authored by Pourcel C,
Salvignol G and Vergnaud G. and the paper was titled “CRISPR elements in
Yersinia pestis acquire new repeats by preferential uptake of bacteriophage DNA,
and provide additional tools for evolutionary studies.”
This paper and its team have a fascinating
story to tell of their own.
This second paper came not from any
university but from a unit of the French Ministry of Defense located 30 miles
south of Paris.
Gilles Vergnaud was a protégé of the French
Army, the Direction Générale de l’Armement.
He was not a soldier in a conventional
sense, having got his training in human genetics from Institut Pasteur and then
getting support for his doctoral and post doctoral studies from the defense
establishment.
In 1987 when he finally completed his
studies nearly totally funded by the government, it was time for payback.
And yes, like many others he did not fly
away to the United States or the Great Britain where most likely he would have
got better offers.
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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