From the earlier post, What does it mean to be Human, I wrote a bit about the social impacts and public perceptions that we scientists need to consider when personalized medicine becomes widespread, which is within years or less. That is precisely what Ciechanover discussed. Empowered by my nap earlier, I was driven to ask Ciechanover a question that has been on my mind for a while. Just as I raise my hand, and piercingly make eye contact with “Professor Aaron,” he says, “Ok, one last question.” And someone sitting right in front of me, who happens to be a graduate student at Cambridge (UK) also has their hand up. Professor Aaron recommended that we flip a coin to decide. I countered that we play rock-paper-scissor, and since I am unbeatable, I got to ask the question (scissors, by the way). I asked about the way forward for treating disease in light of new science: since cells, especially our own, are such complex networks of interacting proteins producing a spectrum of phenotypes, or diseases, is our current paradigm of controlling protein function by drugging it directly better than controlling protein function by editing the gene that encodes it? My goal was to convey the importance of thinking about treating diseases in new ways, like genome editing, in addition to just drugging the protein that correlates with a particular a phenotype.
Afterwards, I had a break to decompress my thoughts, jot them down, and wander around Lindau with my roommate AJ. We ended up at Lindau Harbor for some ice cream and spontaneous smiling and wonderment. I got a bit of writing done, too.
The final event for the day was the US delegation’s dinner at the Lindau Casino, I mean, Applied Statistics Laboratory. At my table on the patio, some of the US’s brightest drank wine and beer and laughed, really, really loud. At one point, Alisha had the whole table gasping for air, “Tyrone, you had one job to do!” Let’s just say you don’t want to be Tyrone (Guy Ritchie movie reference).
Robert, `Shak, Allison, and I shared timeless talks on science and life, over chilled white wine, apple strudel, and espresso. Robert snapped a righteous pic of me while I was talking to `Shak about catalysis at surfaces and what on earth the molecules were doing. I can’t wait to see how that turns out, that’ll be an awesome advance in chemistry. Then the big surprise came, or should I say, The Big Steve?
This is so awesome.
…kevin eduard hauser
