Bricks

Bricks…

The first thought that crosses my mind when I ponder the word “brick” is a drawer full of LEGOs, recently dumped on the floor into a pile of limitless potential. 

This scenario was a daily occurrence in the Hermann home during my childhood. My brothers and I were often occupied with building Egyptian tombs haunted by evil mummies, elegant castles that were regularly under siege, and spaceships that (not-so-successfully) attempted risky evasive maneuvers.

There’s something fascinatingly satisfying about creating something large out of small pieces. Feeling them click into place and watching as the object that was living inside your mind slowly begins to form right before your eyes is such a magical experience and I love that my own children have caught this fever.

Consider LEGO systems, all of which are built with the same materials, only being distinguishable by the different “instruction manual” used. Similarly, all of life shares the same building blocks only being distinguished by the order of bricks displayed in your DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). 

Each rung of your DNA ladder is made of a combination of four different nucleotides (A, T, C, and G). 

Harkening back to the LEGO example, one organism differs from another organism because their respective DNA molecules have different “instruction manuals” (nucleotide sequences) and thus carry a different message. 

Your DNA is tasked with making the proteins that facilitate the structure, function, and regulation of all of your body’s cells, tissues, and organs. 

In short, your body’s unique genome (instruction manual) dictates how you are built.

This protein producing function of DNA was well understood by biologists in the first half of the 20th century but its complex three dimensional structure wasn’t discovered until 1953 when James Watson and Francis Crick finally formulated an accurate description of the double helix.

When James Watson (born in 1928) was only 15 years old, he enrolled into the University of Chicago. After earning his PhD from Indiana University, he became determined to investigate DNA, which led him to the Cavendish Laboratory in London.

When Francis Crick (1916-2004) was in college during World War II, he put his studies on hold to work as a physicist to help develop magnetic mines for use in naval warfare. After the war, he turned his attention to biology at the University of Cambridge and began developing an interest in the three-dimensional structure of the large molecules of living organisms. This is what led him to Cavendish Laboratory to eventually partner with Watson in an attempt to figure out DNA’s structure.

On a bright Spring morning in 1953, Watson and Crick finally did it! They walked into the pub next door and Watson exclaimed, “We have found the secret of life!” 

By connecting the dots from their own work and the discoveries of fellow scientists Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, they were able to determine that DNA’s structure was made of two strands connected by hydrogen bonds, twisted in a helical shape.

The importance of this discovery was that it informed geneticist’s understanding of how DNA is able to replicate itself by separating into two individual strands, each of which becomes the template for a new double helix. 

The shape of DNA explained how it was possible for one’s genetic instructions to be held inside the body and be passed on from generation to generation.

Watson and Crick’s discovery (with the work and help of other brilliant scientists) paved the way for the development of prenatal screening for certain diseases, the genetic engineering of food, the identification of human remains, the design of treatments for diseases such as AIDS, and the accurate testing of physical evidence to aid in convicting or exonerating criminals.

It’s so humbling to ponder our species’ unique ability to reason, discover, and understand how Life works. 

We, as products of the universe, are able to ponder our own existence in the it.

Not only are we able to more fully understand the miracle of life, but we’re also able to manually assist life’s process by genetically engineering and modifying organisms.

Crazy, right?

This quote from James Watson is a fitting final thought: “Only with the discovery of the double helix and the ensuing genetic revolution have we had grounds for thinking that the powers held traditionally to be exclusive property of the gods might one day be ours.