In the Beginning Was the Worm: Finding the Secrets of Life in a Tiny Hermaphrodite

by Andrew Brown

Book Overview

This is the story of how three men won the Nobel Prize for their research on the humble nematode worm C. elegans; how their extraordinary discovery led to the sequencing of the human genome; how a global multibillion-dollar industry was born; and how the mysteries of life were revealed in a tiny, brainless worm.

In 1998 the nematode worm--perhaps the most intensively studied animal on earth--was the first multicellular organism ever...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 023113147X
• ISBN13: 9780231131476
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Genetics from Small Beginnings

Why do we grow old and die? Amazingly, after more than forty years of research, we still don't know the answers. This book charts the history of one branch of investigation into this thorny problem and does it with verve, style, and wit. In addition it is written with an admirable clarity that will enable non-specialists to grasp not only what was going on during the 30 years people have been studying c. elegans but also why it matters. The main omission of the book concerns the fact that unlike complex eukaryotes such as reptiles and mammals our small wormy friend does not undergo cell division. Therefore cell-division-related loss-of-information theories about senescence clearly cannot explain why c. elegans lasts less than a month even under ideal conditions. In principle the fact that this non-dividing cellular system actually does grow old and die should teach us something very important about the mechanisms of aging, but alas we are little closer to understanding why these tiny creatures age than we were when the whole enterprise started with Brenner's initial investigations. It would presumably be very illuminating to contrast the all-too-mortal worm with immortal cancer cell lines; somewhere in there are surely the clues we need to get a better understanding of what it means to age. But this book is a nice primer on the basic issues involved in the study of aging and as such is a welcome addition to the bookshelf.

Little critters with big secrets

The revelations about life promised when the structure of DNA was deduced weren't immediately obvious. In fact, the more investigations proceeded, it was obvious that intense study and analysis would be needed. The inheritance of traits, both physical and behavioural, is a difficult mesh to unravel. Research on single-celled organisms, like E. coli, offered only part of the answers. Even the long years of work with fruit flies only hinted at how genes made bodies and habits. An intermediate creature was needed in order to map out how the DNA did its job. That creature was the humble nematode, about as long as your fingernail is thick. In this highly informative book, Andrew Brown traces the years of study undertaken by scientists and technicians to cut away some of the unknowns to derive answers. "Cut away" is suggestive. The earliest work required understanding how the worm was assembled by its genes. That effort entailed slicing the worm in bits to map all the interconnections. For a creature made of less than a thousand cells, its body proved anything but simple. One researcher spent three decades studying the vulva of this hermaphrodite. Another, a technician, learned the finesse required to section the nerves in order that the pathways the wires followed could be tracked. No end of complexity was revealed and some of it remains mysterious today. Brown credits childhood habits that contributed to the talents these researchers applied to worm analysis. The "nerve-cutter" did jigsaw puzzles, while another was one of those kids constantly taking things apart - and reassembling them - when he was young. In sharp contrast to today's research environment, Brown notes, these individuals remained individuals, untrammeled by bureaucracy and often working with little or no supervision or even contact with their colleagues. Their own dedication kept them at their tasks for extended periods - and usually extended hours. Why go to such extreme lengths to examine such a minuscule creature? It was due to Sydney Brenner. Brenner, the son of an illiterate, entered university at age fourteen. When he graduated, Brown notes, Brenner remained too young for legal employment in a university. Research, however, was an open and inviting path. After casting about for the right creature, in the early 1960s he settled on "Caenorhabditis elegans" [say it to yourself quickly!] for detailed study. It was Brenner's vision that the information gleaned would lead to further insights into development and nervous systems - body building and behaviour. Although little was said of it at the time, the techniques would lead to how human behaviour roots would also be revealed. After describing the details of the progress of the "C. elegans" research, Brown describes the growing interest in launching the Human Genome Project. Although nobody proposed slicing up humans to find out what made them tick, other methods were already being developed. Even mappi

Worms and Heroes

I have been following (from afar) the C. Elegans story for about thirty years. Once I was even motivated enough to try to isolate the worm from some soil so I could play around with it for myself. The attempt failed--I don't know why--but I never lost my vicarious interest in it. This is the first book that I've read that covers the story in a "behind the scenes" way, and I was glad to see it published. The worm now, is of course, one of the best understood multicellular organisms in all of biology. How it came to be a model organism rivaling the mouse, the fruit fly, and man is an interesting lesson in how science at its best really works. It was a man, Sydney Brenner, with a plan to pick just the right organism that could be used to attack some of the fundamental questions of genetics, development and embryogenesis. The selection of this organism took several years of hard work. It is remarkable that during this start-up of the project, the funding organization, the MRC, supported the work without complaint, even though it was something like five years before publications began to roll out. The book is written for a general audience, though there is lots here of interest to those who are more acquainted with biology too. The politics and personalities of the effort, now almost fifty years on, are covered in quite a bit of depth and some of it is pretty entertaining. The technical aspects of the research is also explained in enough detail that the reader can follow it pretty easily, though there are a few challenging rough spots too. This is quite a tale of heroic science getting done with a conviction that unselfish, cooperative, non-commercial, basic research is not only worthwhile, but can be a lot of fun. And these guys clearly had a lot of fun. I think that one of the main reasons, pointed out by the author, was that the researchers were crammed in together with perhaps only a meter of bench space, and often not even a desk, had a lot to do with it. No closed doors, no power point, and no email probably had a lot to do with it too. The book could have been better organized--the jumping around in time (what decade was this?) sometimes was bothersome to me. The portraits of the scientists were nice to see, but I'd have appreciated some drawings of the worm too. Pictures of the laboratory would have been instructive, I think. Brown has done a quite respectable job with this book, and I think it is quite worth reading if you have any interest at all in biology or the history of science. The effort described will serve to confound the deconstructionists, mystics and other quacks of the academy for a long time to come.

Explaining Life at the Molecular Level

_Caenorhabditis elegans_, happily better known as _C. elegans_ and affectionately known by the researchers who study it as "the worm," would not seem to have potential for being the focus of groundbreaking biological studies. It is only a half a millimeter long, for instance, and is a lowly nematode, living on bacteria and slime mold in temperate regions all around the world. It does, however, display rapid growth and production of subsequent generations, which made it perfect for genetic studies, and transparency, which made it perfect for microscopic analysis. But even the original researchers on the worm would have been surprised at all the work that has been done in the last forty years. _C. elegans_ is now "the most completely understood animal in history." That assessment comes in _In the Beginning Was the Worm: Finding the Secrets of Life in a Tiny Hermaphrodite_ (Columbia University Press) by Andrew Brown. In fact, the worm looms even larger in biological research; work on its genetic map grew directly into the human genome mapping project. So its story is worth telling, and Brown, a science journalist, has told it largely through descriptions of the personalities and work of the main researchers. There is little technical detail here about the worm itself, but much interesting history about how the researchers came to understand it so well.Chief of the characters is Sydney Brenner, who designated the worm as a fit source of research in the mid-1960s. Not everyone thought that the worm was the way to go, or even that trying to understand it at the molecular level was a promising avenue of research. There was more glamorous work and ostensibly more productive work going on researching fruit flies, for instance, but Brenner's team showed astonishing dedication. Almost everyone who worked in the lab came away happy, and Brenner and his main colleagues came away with Nobels. One of the most pleasing aspects of the research was how public it was. The researchers were in favor of free trade in ideas within the team, of course, but there was a high streak of idealism in sharing results with the outside world. They truly believed that the unfettered exercise of their talents was for the benefit of humanity. They insisted that sharing results (rather than, say, copyrighting or licensing them) meant it was more likely that someone would latch on to something interesting which needed further work. No one owned the genetic map they produced, and it was from the beginning available to all takers (although it is now much more accessible since biologists can log into it on the web). It is not just that free release is generous and right, but it works. John Sulston, one of the Nobel winners, said, "It was not a theoretical concept, it was a pragmatic way of moving forward." The importance of the worm in all subsequent genetic research cannot be overstated, and so this is a welcome volume to recount how the worm got to be so well under