Chain reaction

Watson & DNA By Victor K. McElheny, Basic Books, $12.25

Swish, comes the tiny filament with the small head, piercing through the enemy bastion. Despite resistance from the egg, the sperm finds its way and the fusion is complete. What follows next is like a dream — hundreds of genes from both the egg and the sperm cross at random to create new characters and conditions for better adaptability of the new life that would dawn at the end of a nine-month-long suspenseful period.

With the completion of human gene mapping, the science of biology seems to have overtaken others in the race for supremacy. And the brain behind it all — from the discovery of the DNA’s double helix to the launch and success of the human genome project — is none other than the “fresh, arrogant, catty, bratty and funny” man, James Dewey Watson.

Victor K. McElheny has taken up the daunting task of describing the improbable career of Watson, the “Einstein of Biology”. Watson & DNA would enchant even a lay reader with its simple and crisp approach. Avoiding unnecessary intrusions into Watson’s personal life, McElheny concentrates on analysing an earth-shattering scientific discovery, the impact it had on its discoverers as well as those connected with this arena. As a science journalist, McElheny has aptly used his interviews with Watson and nearly 50 other scientists, including Francis Crick, Sydney Brenner, Max Perutz and Francois Jacob, to bring out the awe-inspiring tale of our existence.

When Watson explained the DNA double helix model at the Cold Spring Harbor Symposium organized by Max Delbruck, the scientists present at the lecture were left spellbound. As Francois Jacob described the mood: “For a moment the room remained silent. There were a few questions. How, for example, during replication, could the two chains entwined around one another separate without breaking? But no criticism. No objections. This structure was of such simplicity, such perfection, such harmony, such beauty and biological advantages followed from it with such rigor and clarity, that one could not believe it to be untrue.” Watson — his shirt-tails flying in the wind, eyes wide and nose in the air, spoke with intense passion and excitement.

A man of contrasts, Watson strove to be relevant, useful, helpful, influential and above all, interesting. He was an uncompromising rationalist. He brought the discoveries straight into the classroom, complete with the anxiety and gossip. This innovative style attracted some of the best minds to work with him.

He was even different as a child. Watson’s parents helped him develop his confidence and love of learning, unwittingly making him lonely at times. Watson says: “I never even tried to become an adolescent. I never went to teenage parties. I never tried to talk like a teenager. I didn’t fit in. I didn’t want to fit in. I basically passed from being a child to an adult.”

Watson’s sense of humour overshadowed his arrogance. A day after he won the Nobel prize in 1962, he started his lecture at the Harvard Lecture Hall with a talk on springs at Cambridge, unattainable girls he called “popsies”, and tennis, finally coming to the DNA revolution, as if the discovery was also a joke.

Watson was also a great soul. He always thought that Crick and he had just been lucky to have stumbled on the right DNA structure. He reflected that what they had discovered was not difficult science, but a wonderful answer. “We essentially guessed the structure, but it would prove to be as correct as evolution.”

As a brilliant team leader, he converted the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory into one of the best institutions with his inspiration, fund-raising skills and the ability to attract the most gifted researchers.

Watson’s prediction that “our children will more be seen, not as the expression of God’s will, but as results of the uncontrollable throw of genetic dice”, is turning out to be true. He was convinced that biology would stretch hundreds of years into the future, and he remained uncompromisingly reductionist. Although he said his greatest hope was the conquest of many forms of cancer, the biggest question that always bothered his mind was, “How is a telephone number stored in my brain?”