Kari Mullis couldn't get arrested in this town when he first tried to get polymerase chain reaction noticed (well, maybe he could get arrested, just not for PCR). As Mullis recounts in his autobiography, both Science and Nature rejected his announcement. Science would eventually publish an account; Nature never did, although they did publish a paper on time travel Mullis wrote as a grad student (go figure). Mullis had to go slumming in Methods in Enzymology to get his work into print. (Ha! I kid the MiE. Seriously. You guys are aces in LabKitty's book.)
What is PCR, you ask? Short answer: Superwicked technique for making gonzo quantities of DNA that spawned a billion-dollar biotech industry and got Mullis a Nobel prize. Long answer: Um, go read the WillyPete article on it.
The bad news is I can't show you the opening to Mullis' seminal paper because MiE doesn't allow random internet schmucks to access their back issues on-line. The good news is this gives me licence to invent one. In the tradition of Thucydides (who defended his largely-invented history of the Peloponnesian War by claming he did not write what people said, but rather what they would have said had he bothered to interview them), I give you how I like to think Mullis' opened his announcement of PCR.
Um, after the jump.
Specific Synthesis of DNA In Vitro via a Polymerase Catalyzed Chain Reaction. Mullis, K.B. and Faloona, F.A. Specific Synthesis of DNA In Vitro via a Polymerase Catalyzed Chain Reaction. Methods in Enzymology, 155:263-273 (1986)
Detective Frank Beefrock stood in yet another dingy flophouse on the wrong side of town, uniformed officers buzzing around a corpse in the center of the room like bottle flies. He thought he had seen everything this job could throw at him. Murder. Cannibalism. Hemiballism. It had all become routine. Too routine. But now, just two days away from retirement, the job was about to school him in something new.
"Nice of you to make it to the party, Frank."
The voice belonged to Nas McGillycutty, the man materializing at Frank's shoulder out of thin air like a magic trick no one asked for. Air was about all that was thin about Nas. The long hours and bad food had left the department's head medical examiner well-upholstered. One stiff breeze away from a heart attack. The buttons on a cheap Oxford strained against his ample belly like a babysitter walking a pit bull. When Nas would blink, the pudge around his eyes would converge from both directions like two legless fat men doing pull-ups on a jungle gym.
"What do you got for me, Nas?"
"Not much, Frank."
"What do you mean, Nas?"
"Nothing to go on, Frank."
"But the lab boys said they found a DNA on the body."
"Sure, I have it right here." Nas fished an evidence baggy from his pocket and held it up to the light. "But that's not enough to build a case. It would take decades to synthesize enough DNA from this to satisfy the DA." Nas wheezed through his adenoids, sounding like a broken accordion left on the track at Aqueduct.
God damn pencil pushers, Frank thought through clenched teeth. His eyes traced a chalk outline around the corpse, the victim bare as a light-bulb hanging from a wire. She was a young woman, about the same age as his estranged daughter, who he hadn't seen since the divorce.
"So that's it, Nas? We're just going to let some scumbag get away with this?"
Nas shrugged, "Whatayawant from me, Frank? Maybe if we had some way to synthesize DNA. Some kind of polymerase chain reaction. Maybe... "
The words sparked and twisted inside Frank's brain like electric eels in a barrel of soy sauce. Polymerase. Chain reaction. Polymerase chain reaction. Synthesize DNA. It just might work.
"Get me Kari Mullis."
What is PCR, you ask? Short answer: Superwicked technique for making gonzo quantities of DNA that spawned a billion-dollar biotech industry and got Mullis a Nobel prize. Long answer: Um, go read the WillyPete article on it.
The bad news is I can't show you the opening to Mullis' seminal paper because MiE doesn't allow random internet schmucks to access their back issues on-line. The good news is this gives me licence to invent one. In the tradition of Thucydides (who defended his largely-invented history of the Peloponnesian War by claming he did not write what people said, but rather what they would have said had he bothered to interview them), I give you how I like to think Mullis' opened his announcement of PCR.
Um, after the jump.
Specific Synthesis of DNA In Vitro via a Polymerase Catalyzed Chain Reaction. Mullis, K.B. and Faloona, F.A. Specific Synthesis of DNA In Vitro via a Polymerase Catalyzed Chain Reaction. Methods in Enzymology, 155:263-273 (1986)
Detective Frank Beefrock stood in yet another dingy flophouse on the wrong side of town, uniformed officers buzzing around a corpse in the center of the room like bottle flies. He thought he had seen everything this job could throw at him. Murder. Cannibalism. Hemiballism. It had all become routine. Too routine. But now, just two days away from retirement, the job was about to school him in something new.
"Nice of you to make it to the party, Frank."
The voice belonged to Nas McGillycutty, the man materializing at Frank's shoulder out of thin air like a magic trick no one asked for. Air was about all that was thin about Nas. The long hours and bad food had left the department's head medical examiner well-upholstered. One stiff breeze away from a heart attack. The buttons on a cheap Oxford strained against his ample belly like a babysitter walking a pit bull. When Nas would blink, the pudge around his eyes would converge from both directions like two legless fat men doing pull-ups on a jungle gym.
"What do you got for me, Nas?"
"Not much, Frank."
"What do you mean, Nas?"
"Nothing to go on, Frank."
"But the lab boys said they found a DNA on the body."
"Sure, I have it right here." Nas fished an evidence baggy from his pocket and held it up to the light. "But that's not enough to build a case. It would take decades to synthesize enough DNA from this to satisfy the DA." Nas wheezed through his adenoids, sounding like a broken accordion left on the track at Aqueduct.
God damn pencil pushers, Frank thought through clenched teeth. His eyes traced a chalk outline around the corpse, the victim bare as a light-bulb hanging from a wire. She was a young woman, about the same age as his estranged daughter, who he hadn't seen since the divorce.
"So that's it, Nas? We're just going to let some scumbag get away with this?"
Nas shrugged, "Whatayawant from me, Frank? Maybe if we had some way to synthesize DNA. Some kind of polymerase chain reaction. Maybe... "
The words sparked and twisted inside Frank's brain like electric eels in a barrel of soy sauce. Polymerase. Chain reaction. Polymerase chain reaction. Synthesize DNA. It just might work.
"Get me Kari Mullis."
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