What do you think?
Rate this book
Loose Ends...false Starts
Sydney Brenner was born in South Africa and educated at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Medicine and Science). He then moved to Oxford and received a D.Phil in 1952, before joining the MRC Unit in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge in 1956. His various accomplishments include serving as the Director of MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, founding the Molecular Science Institute in Berkeley, holding the position of Distinguished Professor at the Salk Institute, La Jolla. And during his last years, Sydney Brenner played a key role in shaping research and development in the biomedical sector in Singapore as A*Star Senior Fellow.He was one of the greatest biologists of the 20th century and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his pioneering work in the field of molecular biology. He was also known for his boundless curiosity, sharp intellect and courage to speak with clarity and characteristic wit as evident in this delightful book which is a compilation of the columns that he wrote for Current Biology in the late '90s.
- GenresScience
288 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 16, 2019
6 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Sydney Brenner
12 books16 followersSydney Brenner, was is a South African biologist and a 2002 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, shared with H. Robert Horvitz and John Sulston.
Brenner made significant contributions to work on the genetic code, and other areas of molecular biology while working in the Medical Research Council Unit in Cambridge, England.
He established the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of developmental biology, and founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, U.S..
Brenner was born in the small town of Germiston, South Africa. His father, a cobbler, came to South Africa from Lithuania in 1910, and his mother, from Riga, Latvia, in 1922. Educated at Germiston High School and the University of the Witwatersrand, he received an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 which enabled him to complete a D.Phil. from Exeter College, Oxford. He then spent the next 20 years at the Medical Research Council Unit in Cambridge; here, during the 1960s, he contributed to molecular biology, then an emerging field. In 1976 he joined the Salk Institute in California.
He was married to Dr. May Brenner (née Covitz, subsequently Balkind) from December 1952 until her death in January 2010; their children include Belinda, Carla, Stefan, and his stepson Jonathan Balkind from his wife's first marriage. He lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire.
The "American plan" and "European Plan" were proposed by Sydney Brenner as competing models for the way brain cells determine their neural functions.
According to the European plan (sometimes referred to as the British plan), the function of cells is determined by its genetic lineage. Therefore, a mother cell with a specific function (for instance, interpreting visual information) would create daughter cells with similar functions.
According to the American plan, a brain cell's function is determined by the function of its neighbors after cell migration. If a cell migrates to an area in the visual cortex, the cell will adopt the function of its neighboring visual cortex cells, guided by chemical and axonal signals from these cells. If the same cell migrates to the auditory cortex, it would develop functions related to hearing, regardless of its genetic lineage.
Brenner made significant contributions to work on the genetic code, and other areas of molecular biology while working in the Medical Research Council Unit in Cambridge, England.
He established the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for the investigation of developmental biology, and founded the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California, U.S..
Brenner was born in the small town of Germiston, South Africa. His father, a cobbler, came to South Africa from Lithuania in 1910, and his mother, from Riga, Latvia, in 1922. Educated at Germiston High School and the University of the Witwatersrand, he received an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 which enabled him to complete a D.Phil. from Exeter College, Oxford. He then spent the next 20 years at the Medical Research Council Unit in Cambridge; here, during the 1960s, he contributed to molecular biology, then an emerging field. In 1976 he joined the Salk Institute in California.
He was married to Dr. May Brenner (née Covitz, subsequently Balkind) from December 1952 until her death in January 2010; their children include Belinda, Carla, Stefan, and his stepson Jonathan Balkind from his wife's first marriage. He lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire.
The "American plan" and "European Plan" were proposed by Sydney Brenner as competing models for the way brain cells determine their neural functions.
According to the European plan (sometimes referred to as the British plan), the function of cells is determined by its genetic lineage. Therefore, a mother cell with a specific function (for instance, interpreting visual information) would create daughter cells with similar functions.
According to the American plan, a brain cell's function is determined by the function of its neighbors after cell migration. If a cell migrates to an area in the visual cortex, the cell will adopt the function of its neighboring visual cortex cells, guided by chemical and axonal signals from these cells. If the same cell migrates to the auditory cortex, it would develop functions related to hearing, regardless of its genetic lineage.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 19, 2024
Serendipity is a fine thing.
A few months ago, I was speaking to someone at a dinner, who happened to be an old colleague of Sydney Brenner. We ended up chatting about the famous Nobel Laureate, who apparently had a wicked sense of humour. The person I met was so steadfast about this point that I received a copy of this book from him a few weeks later!
Having just finished reading it, I can't help but agree. This compendium of the columns Sydney Brenner wrote illustrates his remarkable wit and intellect. He often would put these skills on display by writing mock letters to fictional friends, like Willie. As readers, we can track Willie's career through the letters, watching him grow from a PhD student to the head of a famous (fictional) research institute, while Dr Brenner gives him advice through these letters at various time points in his career, wasting no opportunity to criticise the "publish or perish" nature of academia. He also does not pull his punches with his condemnation of big pharma, which I found both informative and entertaining.
It's rare to find a book about science that has the capacity to make you both think and chuckle, and indeed, this book fits into that very endangered class (Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix is probably the only other one that springs to mind!).
A few months ago, I was speaking to someone at a dinner, who happened to be an old colleague of Sydney Brenner. We ended up chatting about the famous Nobel Laureate, who apparently had a wicked sense of humour. The person I met was so steadfast about this point that I received a copy of this book from him a few weeks later!
Having just finished reading it, I can't help but agree. This compendium of the columns Sydney Brenner wrote illustrates his remarkable wit and intellect. He often would put these skills on display by writing mock letters to fictional friends, like Willie. As readers, we can track Willie's career through the letters, watching him grow from a PhD student to the head of a famous (fictional) research institute, while Dr Brenner gives him advice through these letters at various time points in his career, wasting no opportunity to criticise the "publish or perish" nature of academia. He also does not pull his punches with his condemnation of big pharma, which I found both informative and entertaining.
It's rare to find a book about science that has the capacity to make you both think and chuckle, and indeed, this book fits into that very endangered class (Genes, Girls, and Gamow: After the Double Helix is probably the only other one that springs to mind!).
Displaying 1 of 1 review