TED2005
James Watson: How we discovered DNA
James Watson om hvordan han opdagede DNA
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Nobelprismodtager James Watson åbner TED2005 med den ærlige og sjove historie om hvordan han og hans forskningspartner, Francis Crick, opdagede strukturen på DNA.
James Watson - Biologist, Nobel laureate
Nobel laureate James Watson took part in one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century: the discovery of the structure of DNA. More than 50 years later, he continues to investigate biology's deepest secrets. Full bio
Nobel laureate James Watson took part in one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century: the discovery of the structure of DNA. More than 50 years later, he continues to investigate biology's deepest secrets. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:25
Well, I thought there would be a podium, so I'm a bit scared.
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Nå, jeg troede der ville være et podium, så jeg er lidt bange.
00:28
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
00:31
Chris asked me to tell again how we found the structure of DNA.
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Chris bad mig om igen at fortælle hvordan vi fandt strukturen på DNA.
00:34
And since, you know, I follow his orders, I'll do it.
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Og siden, I ved, jeg følger hans ordrer, vil jeg gøre det.
00:37
But it slightly bores me.
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Men det keder mig en smule.
00:39
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
00:41
And, you know, I wrote a book. So I'll say something --
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Og, I ved, jeg skrev en bog. Så jeg vil sige noget --
00:46
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
00:48
-- I'll say a little about, you know, how the discovery was made,
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jeg vil fortælle lidt om, I ved, hvordan opdagelsen blev gjort,
00:51
and why Francis and I found it.
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og hvorfor Francis og jeg fandt det.
00:53
And then, I hope maybe I have at least five minutes to say
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Og så, håber jeg at jeg i hvert fald har fem minutter til at fortælle
00:57
what makes me tick now.
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noget om hvad der fanger mig nu.
01:01
In back of me is a picture of me when I was 17.
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Bag mig er der et billede af mig fra da jeg var 17.
01:06
I was at the University of Chicago, in my third year,
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Jeg gik på University of Chicago, i mit tredje år,
01:09
and I was in my third year because the University of Chicago
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og jeg var i mit tredje år, fordi University of Chicago
01:15
let you in after two years of high school.
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giver en adgang efter to års gymnasium.
01:17
So you -- it was fun to get away from high school -- (Laughter) --
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Så man -- det var sjovt at komme væk fra gymnasiet -- (Latter) --
01:23
because I was very small, and I was no good in sports,
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fordi jeg var meget lille, og jeg duede ikke til sport,
01:26
or anything like that.
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eller noget i den retning.
01:27
But I should say that my background -- my father was, you know,
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Men jeg bør sige at min baggrund -- min far var, I ved,
01:33
raised to be an Episcopalian and Republican,
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opdraget til at være episkopal og republikaner,
01:35
but after one year of college, he became an atheist and a Democrat.
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men efter et år på universitetet, blev han ateist og demokrat.
01:40
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
01:43
And my mother was Irish Catholic,
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Og min mor var irsk katolsk,
01:45
and -- but she didn't take religion too seriously.
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og -- men hun tog ikke religion alt for alvorligt.
01:50
And by the age of 11, I was no longer going to Sunday Mass,
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Og da jeg var 11 gik jeg ikke længere til søndagsmesse,
01:54
and going on birdwatching walks with my father.
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og tog på gåture for at kigge på fugle med min far.
01:58
So early on, I heard of Charles Darwin.
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Så jeg hørte tidligt om Charles Darwin.
02:02
I guess, you know, he was the big hero.
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Jeg tror, I ved, at han var den store helt.
02:05
And, you know, you understand life as it now exists through evolution.
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Og, I ved, man forstår livet som det nu eksisterer gennem evolution.
02:11
And at the University of Chicago I was a zoology major,
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Og ved University of Chicago havde jeg zoologi som hovedfag,
02:15
and thought I would end up, you know, if I was bright enough,
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og troede jeg ville ende som, I ved, hvis jeg var kvik nok,
02:18
maybe getting a Ph.D. from Cornell in ornithology.
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måske få en Ph.D. fra Cornell i ornitologi.
02:23
Then, in the Chicago paper, there was a review of a book
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Så, i avisen i Chicago, var der en anmeldelse af en bog,
02:29
called "What is Life?" by the great physicist, Schrodinger.
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der hed "Hvad er Liv?" af en stor fysiker, Schrodinger.
02:33
And that, of course, had been a question I wanted to know.
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Og det var, selvfølgelig, et spørgsmål som jeg ville kende svaret på.
02:36
You know, Darwin explained life after it got started,
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I ved, Darwin forklarede livet efter det begyndte,
02:39
but what was the essence of life?
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men hvad var livets essens?
02:41
And Schrodinger said the essence was information
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Og Schrodinger sagde at essensen var information
02:45
present in our chromosomes, and it had to be present
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der var tilstede i vores kromosomer, og den skulle være tilstede
02:49
on a molecule. I'd never really thought of molecules before.
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på et molekyle. Jeg havde aldrig rigtigt tænkt på molekyler før.
02:55
You know chromosomes, but this was a molecule,
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Man kender kromosomer, men dette var et molekyle,
02:59
and somehow all the information was probably present
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og på en eller anden måde var den information formentlig til stede
03:02
in some digital form. And there was the big question
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i en eller anden digital form. Og der var det store spørgsmål
03:06
of, how did you copy the information?
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om, hvordan kopierede man den information?
03:08
So that was the book. And so, from that moment on,
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Så det var bogen. Så, fra det øjeblik,
03:13
I wanted to be a geneticist --
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ville jeg være genetiker --
03:18
understand the gene and, through that, understand life.
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ville forstå genet og, gennem det, forstå liv.
03:20
So I had, you know, a hero at a distance.
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Så jeg havde, I ved, en helt på afstand.
03:25
It wasn't a baseball player; it was Linus Pauling.
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Det var ikke en baseball spiller; det var Linus Pauling.
03:27
And so I applied to Caltech and they turned me down.
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Så jeg søgte ind på Caltech og de afviste mig.
03:33
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
03:35
So I went to Indiana,
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Så tog jeg til Indiana,
03:36
which was actually as good as Caltech in genetics,
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hvilket faktisk var lige så godt som Caltech indenfor genetik,
03:39
and besides, they had a really good basketball team. (Laughter)
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og derudover havde de et virkelig godt basketball team. (Latter)
03:43
So I had a really quite happy life at Indiana.
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Så jeg havde virkelig et temmelig lykkeligt liv ved Indiana.
03:46
And it was at Indiana I got the impression
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Og det var ved Indiana at jeg fik indtrykket
03:49
that, you know, the gene was likely to be DNA.
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at, I ved, genet var sandsynligvis DNA.
03:51
And so when I got my Ph.D., I should go and search for DNA.
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Så jeg fik min Ph.D., jeg burde tage ud og lede efter DNA.
03:55
So I first went to Copenhagen because I thought, well,
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Så først tog jeg til København fordi jeg tænkte, jamen,
04:01
maybe I could become a biochemist,
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måske kunne jeg blive biokemiker,
04:02
but I discovered biochemistry was very boring.
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men jeg opdagede at biokemi var meget kedeligt.
04:05
It wasn't going anywhere toward, you know, saying what the gene was;
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Det var ikke på vej noget sted hen, I ved, og sagde at genet var;
04:09
it was just nuclear science. And oh, that's the book, little book.
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det var bare nuklear videnskab. Og øh, det er bogen, lille bog.
04:13
You can read it in about two hours.
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Man kan læse den på cirka to timer.
04:15
And -- but then I went to a meeting in Italy.
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Og -- men så tog jeg til et møde i Italien.
04:19
And there was an unexpected speaker who wasn't on the program,
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Og der var en uventet foredragsholder der ikke var på programmet,
04:24
and he talked about DNA.
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og han talte om DNA.
04:26
And this was Maurice Wilkins. He was trained as a physicist,
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Og dette var Maurice Wilkins. Han var trænet som fysiker,
04:29
and after the war he wanted to do biophysics, and he picked DNA
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og efter krigen ville han lave biokemi, og han valgte DNA
04:33
because DNA had been determined at the Rockefeller Institute
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fordi DNA blev valgt ved Rockefeller Institutet
04:36
to possibly be the genetic molecules on the chromosomes.
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til muligvis at være det genetiske molekyle på kromosomerne.
04:40
Most people believed it was proteins.
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De fleste mennesker mente det var proteiner.
04:41
But Wilkins, you know, thought DNA was the best bet,
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Men Wilkins, I ved, mente at DNA var det bedste gæt,
04:45
and he showed this x-ray photograph.
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og han viste dette røntgen billede.
04:49
Sort of crystalline. So DNA had a structure,
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Krystalagtigt på en måde. Så DNA havde en struktur,
04:53
even though it owed it to probably different molecules
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selvom det skyldes det til sikkert forskellige molekyler
04:56
carrying different sets of instructions.
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der bar forskellige sæt instruktioner.
04:58
So there was something universal about the DNA molecule.
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Så der var noget universelt ved DNA molekylet.
05:00
So I wanted to work with him, but he didn't want a former birdwatcher,
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Så jeg ville arbejde med ham, men havde ikke lyst til en tidligere amatørornitolog,
05:05
and I ended up in Cambridge, England.
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og jeg endte i Cambridge, England.
05:06
So I went to Cambridge,
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Så jeg tog til Cambridge,
05:08
because it was really the best place in the world then
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fordi det var virkelig det bedste sted i verden dengang
05:11
for x-ray crystallography. And x-ray crystallography is now a subject
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til røntgen krystallografi. Og røntgen krystallografi er nu et emne
05:15
in, you know, chemistry departments.
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i, I ved, kemi afdelinger.
05:17
I mean, in those days it was the domain of the physicists.
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Jeg mener, dengang var det fysikernes domæne.
05:20
So the best place for x-ray crystallography
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Så det bedste sted for røntgen krystallografi
05:24
was at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge.
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var ved Cavendish Laboratoriet ved Cambridge.
05:27
And there I met Francis Crick.
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Og der mødte jeg Francis Crick.
05:33
I went there without knowing him. He was 35. I was 23.
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Jeg tog derhen uden at kende ham. Han var 35. Jeg var 23.
05:36
And within a day, we had decided that
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Og indenfor en dag, havde vi besluttet at
05:41
maybe we could take a shortcut to finding the structure of DNA.
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måske kunne vi tage en smutvej til at finde DNAs struktur.
05:46
Not solve it like, you know, in rigorous fashion, but build a model,
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Ikke løse det ligesom, I ved, på en rigoristisk måde, men bygge en model,
05:52
an electro-model, using some coordinates of, you know,
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en elektro-model, ved at bruge nogle koordinater til, I ved,
05:56
length, all that sort of stuff from x-ray photographs.
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længde, alle den slags ting fra røntgen fotografier.
05:59
But just ask what the molecule -- how should it fold up?
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Men bare spørg hvad molekylet -- hvordan ville det folde sig?
06:02
And the reason for doing so, at the center of this photograph,
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Og grunden til at gøre det på den måde, i midten af billedet,
06:06
is Linus Pauling. About six months before, he proposed
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er Linus Pauling. Cirka seks måneder inden, foreslog han
06:09
the alpha helical structure for proteins. And in doing so,
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den alfa spiralformede struktur til proteiner. Og ved at gøre det,
06:13
he banished the man out on the right,
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forviste han manden til højre,
06:15
Sir Lawrence Bragg, who was the Cavendish professor.
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Sir Lawrence Bragg, der var professoren ved Cavendish.
06:18
This is a photograph several years later,
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Dette er et billede fra adskillige år senere,
06:20
when Bragg had cause to smile.
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da Bragg havde grund til at smile.
06:22
He certainly wasn't smiling when I got there,
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Han smilede bestemt ikke da jeg kom,
06:24
because he was somewhat humiliated by Pauling getting the alpha helix,
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fordi han var blev noget ydmyget af at Pauling fandt alfa spiralen,
06:28
and the Cambridge people failing because they weren't chemists.
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og Cambridge folkene der fejlede fordi de ikke var kemikere.
06:32
And certainly, neither Crick or I were chemists,
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Og bestemt, hverken Crick eller jeg var kemikere,
06:37
so we tried to build a model. And he knew, Francis knew Wilkins.
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så vi prøvede at bygge en model. Og han kendte, Francis kendte Wilkins.
06:43
So Wilkins said he thought it was the helix.
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Så Wilkins sagde han mente det var spiralformen.
06:45
X-ray diagram, he thought was comparable with the helix.
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Røntgen diagrammet, han mente det var sammenligneligt med spiralformen.
06:48
So we built a three-stranded model.
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Så vi byggede en tre strenget model.
06:50
The people from London came up.
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Folkene fra London kom forbi.
06:52
Wilkins and this collaborator, or possible collaborator,
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Wilkins og hans samarbejder, eller mulig samarbejder,
06:57
Rosalind Franklin, came up and sort of laughed at our model.
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Rosalind Franklin, kom forbi og mere eller mindre grinede af vores model.
07:00
They said it was lousy, and it was.
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De sagde det var elendigt, og det var det.
07:02
So we were told to build no more models; we were incompetent.
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Så vi blev fortalt at vi ikke skulle bygge flere modeller; vi var inkompetente.
07:07
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
07:11
And so we didn't build any models,
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Så vi byggede ikke flere modeller,
07:13
and Francis sort of continued to work on proteins.
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og Francis fortsatte på en eller anden måde arbejdet med proteinerne.
07:16
And basically, I did nothing. And -- except read.
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Og i bund og grund, gjorde jeg ingenting. Og -- bortset fra at læse.
07:22
You know, basically, reading is a good thing; you get facts.
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I ved, dybest set, er det at læse en god ting; man får oplysninger.
07:25
And we kept telling the people in London
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Og vi blev ved med at fortælle folkene i London
07:28
that Linus Pauling's going to move on to DNA.
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at Linus Pauling vil flytte til DNA.
07:30
If DNA is that important, Linus will know it.
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Hvis DNA er så vigtigt, vil Linus vide det.
07:32
He'll build a model, and then we're going to be scooped.
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Han bygger en model, og så bliver vi overhalet indenom.
07:34
And, in fact, he'd written the people in London:
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Og, faktisk, havde han skrevet til folkene i London:
07:36
Could he see their x-ray photograph?
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Kunne han se deres røntgen billede?
07:39
And they had the wisdom to say "no." So he didn't have it.
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Og de havde visheden til at sige "nej." Så han havde det ikke.
07:42
But there was ones in the literature.
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Men der var nogen i litteraturen.
07:44
Actually, Linus didn't look at them that carefully.
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Faktisk, kiggede Linus ikke omhyggeligt på dem.
07:46
But about, oh, 15 months after I got to Cambridge,
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Men cirka, 15 måneder efter jeg kom til Cambridge,
07:52
a rumor began to appear from Linus Pauling's son,
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startede et rygte fra Linus Paulings søn,
07:55
who was in Cambridge, that his father was now working on DNA.
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der var i Cambridge, at hans var nu arbejdede på DNA.
07:59
And so, one day Peter came in and he said he was Peter Pauling,
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Så, en dag kom Peter ind og sagde at han var Peter Pauling,
08:03
and he gave me a copy of his father's manuscripts.
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og han gav mig en kopi af hans fars manuskripter.
08:05
And boy, I was scared because I thought, you know, we may be scooped.
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Og manner, jeg var skræmt fordi jeg troede, I ved, måske var vi blevet overhalet indenom.
08:11
I have nothing to do, no qualifications for anything.
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Jeg har ikke noget at lave, ingen kvalifikationer for noget.
08:14
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
08:16
And so there was the paper, and he proposed a three-stranded structure.
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Så der var afhandlingen, og han foreslog en tre strenget struktur.
08:22
And I read it, and it was just -- it was crap.
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Og jeg læste den, og det var bare -- det var noget bras.
08:24
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
08:29
So this was, you know, unexpected from the world's --
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Så dette var, I ved, uventet fra verdens --
08:32
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
08:34
-- and so, it was held together by hydrogen bonds
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-- så, det blev holdt sammen af hydrogen forbindelser
08:37
between phosphate groups.
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mellem fosfat grupper.
08:39
Well, if the peak pH that cells have is around seven,
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Jamen, hvis spids pH værdien som cellerne har er omkring syv,
08:43
those hydrogen bonds couldn't exist.
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kunne de hydrogen forbindelser ikke eksistere.
08:46
We rushed over to the chemistry department and said,
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Vi skyndte os over til kemi afdelingen og sagde,
08:48
"Could Pauling be right?" And Alex Hust said, "No." So we were happy.
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"Kunne Pauling have ret?" Og Alex Hust sagde, "Nej." Så vi var glade.
08:54
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
08:56
And, you know, we were still in the game, but we were frightened
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Og, I ved, vi var stadig med i kampen, men vi var bange for
08:59
that somebody at Caltech would tell Linus that he was wrong.
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at nogen ved Caltech ville fortælle Linus at han tog fejl.
09:03
And so Bragg said, "Build models."
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Så Bragg sagde, "Byg modeller."
09:05
And a month after we got the Pauling manuscript --
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Og en måned efter vi fik Paulings afhandling --
09:09
I should say I took the manuscript to London, and showed the people.
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jeg burde sige at jeg tog afhandlingen med til London, og viste det til folkene.
09:14
Well, I said, Linus was wrong and that we're still in the game
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Jamen, jeg sagde, Linus tog fejl og at vi stadig er med i kampen
09:17
and that they should immediately start building models.
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og at de burde i gang med at bygge modeller med det samme.
09:19
But Wilkins said "no." Rosalind Franklin was leaving in about two months,
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Men Wilkins sagde "nej." Rosalind Franklin ville forlade os to måneder senere,
09:24
and after she left he would start building models.
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og efter hun forlod os ville han begynde at bygge modeller.
09:27
And so I came back with that news to Cambridge,
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Så jeg kom tilbage til Cambridge med det nyt,
09:31
and Bragg said, "Build models."
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og Bragg sagde, "Byg modeller."
09:32
Well, of course, I wanted to build models.
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Jamen, selvfølgelig, ville jeg bygge modeller.
09:33
And there's a picture of Rosalind. She really, you know,
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Og her er et billede af Rosalind. Hun var virkelig, I ved,
09:39
in one sense she was a chemist,
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på en måde kemiker,
09:41
but really she would have been trained --
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men hun ville virkelig blive trænet --
09:43
she didn't know any organic chemistry or quantum chemistry.
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hun kendte ikke noget til organisk kemi eller kvantekemi.
09:46
She was a crystallographer.
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Hun var krystallograf.
09:47
And I think part of the reason she didn't want to build models
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Og jeg tror at en del af grunden til at hun ikke ville bygge modeller
09:52
was, she wasn't a chemist, whereas Pauling was a chemist.
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var, hun var ikke kemiker, hvorimod Pauling var kemiker.
09:55
And so Crick and I, you know, started building models,
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Så Crick og jeg, I ved, begyndte at bygge modeller,
10:00
and I'd learned a little chemistry, but not enough.
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og jeg lærte en smule om kemi, men ikke nok.
10:03
Well, we got the answer on the 28th February '53.
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Jamen, vi fik svaret den 28 februar, 1953.
10:07
And it was because of a rule, which, to me, is a very good rule:
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Og det var på grund af en regel, der for mig, er en meget god regel:
10:11
Never be the brightest person in a room, and we weren't.
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Vær aldrig den kvikkeste person i et lokale, og det var vi ikke.
10:17
We weren't the best chemists in the room.
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Vi var ikke de bedste kemikere i lokalet.
10:19
I went in and showed them a pairing I'd done,
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Jeg tog ind og viste dem en pardannelse jeg havde lavet,
10:21
and Jerry Donohue -- he was a chemist -- he said, it's wrong.
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og Jerry Donohue -- han var kemiker -- ha sagde, det er forkert.
10:25
You've got -- the hydrogen atoms are in the wrong place.
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Man har -- hydrogen atomerne er det forkerte sted.
10:28
I just put them down like they were in the books.
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Jeg havde placeret dem ligesom de var i bøgerne.
10:31
He said they were wrong.
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Han sagde de var forkerte.
10:32
So the next day, you know, after I thought, "Well, he might be right."
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Så den næste dag, I ved, efter jeg tænkte, "Jamen, måske har han ret."
10:36
So I changed the locations, and then we found the base pairing,
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Så jeg ændrede placeringerne, og så fandt vi basis pardannelsen,
10:40
and Francis immediately said the chains run in absolute directions.
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og Francis sagde med det samme at kæderne løber i absolutte retninger.
10:43
And we knew we were right.
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Og vi vidste vi havde ret.
10:45
So it was a pretty, you know, it all happened in about two hours.
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Så det var en temmelig, I ved, det skete alt sammen i løbet af et par timer.
10:52
From nothing to thing.
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Fra ingenting til ting.
10:56
And we knew it was big because, you know, if you just put A next to T
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Og vi vidste det var stort fordi, I ved, hvis man bare sætter A ved siden af T
11:01
and G next to C, you have a copying mechanism.
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og G ved siden af C, har man en kopierende mekanisme.
11:04
So we saw how genetic information is carried.
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Så vi så hvordan genetisk information bliver båret videre.
11:08
It's the order of the four bases.
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Det er ordenen på de fire baser.
11:09
So in a sense, it is a sort of digital-type information.
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Så på en måde, er det en slags digital information.
11:13
And you copy it by going from strand-separating.
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Og man kopierer den ved at gå fra at separere strenge.
11:18
So, you know, if it didn't work this way, you might as well believe it,
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Så, I ved, hvis det ikke virkede på denne måde, kunne man lige så godt tro på det,
11:26
because you didn't have any other scheme.
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fordi man havde ikke andre planer.
11:27
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
11:30
But that's not the way most scientists think.
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Men det er ikke sådan de fleste forskere tænker.
11:33
Most scientists are really rather dull.
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De fleste forskere at faktisk ret kedelige.
11:36
They said, we won't think about it until we know it's right.
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De sagde, vi vil ikke tænke på det før vi ved det er rigtigt.
11:38
But, you know, we thought, well, it's at least 95 percent right or 99 percent right.
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Men, I ved, vi tænkte, jamen, det er i hvert fald 95 procent rigtigt, eller 99 procent rigtigt.
11:44
So think about it. The next five years,
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Så tænk på det. De næste fem år,
11:48
there were essentially something like five references
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var der i bund og grund noget i retningen af fem kildehenvisninger
11:50
to our work in "Nature" -- none.
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til vores arbejde i "Nature" -- ingen.
11:53
And so we were left by ourselves,
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Så vi var overladt til os selv,
11:55
and trying to do the last part of the trio: how do you --
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og prøvede at færdiggøre den sidste del i trioen: hvordan --
12:00
what does this genetic information do?
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hvad gør denne genetiske information?
12:04
It was pretty obvious that it provided the information
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Det var ret åbenlyst, at det gav os information
12:08
to an RNA molecule, and then how do you go from RNA to protein?
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til et RNA molekule, og hvordan går man så fra RNA til protein?
12:11
For about three years we just -- I tried to solve the structure of RNA.
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I tre år var vi bare -- jeg prøvede at løse strukturen i RNA.
12:16
It didn't yield. It didn't give good x-ray photographs.
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Det gav sig ikke. Det gav ikke gode røntgen billeder.
12:19
I was decidedly unhappy; a girl didn't marry me.
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Jeg var udpræget ulykkelig; en pige giftede sig ikke med mig.
12:22
It was really, you know, sort of a shitty time.
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Det var virkelig, I ved, en modbydelig tid.
12:25
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
12:28
So there's a picture of Francis and I before I met the girl,
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Så der er et billede af Francis og jeg før jeg mødte pigen,
12:32
so I'm still looking happy.
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så jeg ser stadig lykkelig ud.
12:33
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
12:36
But there is what we did when we didn't know
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Men her er hvad vi gjorde når vi ikke vidste
12:39
where to go forward: we formed a club and called it the RNA Tie Club.
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hvordan vi skulle fortsætte: vi startede en klub og kaldte den RNA Tie Club.
12:45
George Gamow, also a great physicist, he designed the tie.
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George Gamow, der også var en stor fysiker, han opfandt slipset.
12:49
He was one of the members. The question was:
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Han var et af medlemmerne. Spørgsmålet var:
12:52
How do you go from a four-letter code
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Hvordan går man fra en fire cifret kode
12:54
to the 20-letter code of proteins?
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til proteinets 20 ciffer kode?
12:56
Feynman was a member, and Teller, and friends of Gamow.
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Feynman var medlem, og Teller, og Gamows venner.
13:01
But that's the only -- no, we were only photographed twice.
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Med det er det eneste -- nej, vi blev kun fotograferet to gange.
13:07
And on both occasions, you know, one of us was missing the tie.
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Og begge gange, I ved, manglede en af os slipset.
13:10
There's Francis up on the upper right,
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Der er Francis øverst til højre,
13:13
and Alex Rich -- the M.D.-turned-crystallographer -- is next to me.
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og Alex Rich -- lægen der blev krystallograf -- står ved siden af mig.
13:18
This was taken in Cambridge in September of 1955.
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Dette blev taget i Cambridge i september 1955.
13:22
And I'm smiling, sort of forced, I think,
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Og jeg smiler, anstrengt, tror jeg,
13:28
because the girl I had, boy, she was gone.
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fordi pigen jeg havde, manner, hun var væk.
13:31
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
13:35
And so I didn't really get happy until 1960,
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Så jeg blev ikke rigtig lykkelig før 1960,
13:40
because then we found out, basically, you know,
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fordi da fandt vi ud af, dybest set, I ved,
13:44
that there are three forms of RNA.
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at der er tre typer RNA.
13:46
And we knew, basically, DNA provides the information for RNA.
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Og vi vidste, i bund og grund, at DNA giver information til RNA.
13:49
RNA provides the information for protein.
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RNA giver information til proteinet.
13:51
And that let Marshall Nirenberg, you know, take RNA -- synthetic RNA --
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Og det fik Marshall Nirenberg, I ved, til at tage RNA -- syntetisk RNA --
13:56
put it in a system making protein. He made polyphenylalanine,
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sætte det i et system og lave protein. Han lavede polyphenylalanine,
14:02
polyphenylalanine. So that's the first cracking of the genetic code,
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polyphenylalanine. Så det er begyndelsen på at knække den genetiske kode,
14:10
and it was all over by 1966.
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og det var alt sammen slut i 1966.
14:12
So there, that's what Chris wanted me to do, it was --
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Så der, det er hvad Chris vi have mig til, det var --
14:15
so what happened since then?
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så hvad er der sket siden da?
14:19
Well, at that time -- I should go back.
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Jamen, dengang -- jeg burde gå tilbage.
14:22
When we found the structure of DNA, I gave my first talk
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Da vi fandt DNAets struktur, holdte jeg mit første foredrag
14:27
at Cold Spring Harbor. The physicist, Leo Szilard,
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ved Cold Spring Harbor. Fysikeren, Leo Szilard,
14:30
he looked at me and said, "Are you going to patent this?"
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han kiggede på mig og sagde, "Vil du patentere dette?"
14:33
And -- but he knew patent law, and that we couldn't patent it,
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Og -- men han kendte patentlovgivningen, og at vi ikke kunne patentere det,
14:38
because you couldn't. No use for it.
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fordi det kunne man ikke. Ingen brug for det.
14:40
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
14:42
And so DNA didn't become a useful molecule,
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Så DNA blev ikke et brugbart molekyle,
14:46
and the lawyers didn't enter into the equation until 1973,
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og advokaterne kom ikke ind i ligningen før 1973,
14:51
20 years later, when Boyer and Cohen in San Francisco
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20 år senere, da Boyer og Cohen i San Fransisco
14:56
and Stanford came up with their method of recombinant DNA,
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og Stanford kom med deres metode til rekombinant DNA,
14:58
and Stanford patented it and made a lot of money.
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og Stanford patenterede det og tjente en masse penge.
15:01
At least they patented something
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De patenterede i det mindste noget
15:02
which, you know, could do useful things.
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som, I ved, kunne gøre brugbare ting.
15:05
And then, they learned how to read the letters for the code.
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Og så, lærte de hvordan man læser bogstaverne til koden.
15:08
And, boom, we've, you know, had a biotech industry. And,
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Og, boom, vi, I ved, havde en biotech industri. Og,
15:13
but we were still a long ways from, you know,
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men vi var stadig langt fra, I ved,
15:20
answering a question which sort of dominated my childhood,
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at besvare spørgsmålet der på en eller anden måde dominerede min barndom,
15:22
which is: How do you nature-nurture?
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som er: Hvordan nærer man naturen?
15:27
And so I'll go on. I'm already out of time,
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Så jeg fortsætter. Jeg er allerede over tid,
15:31
but this is Michael Wigler, a very, very clever mathematician
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men dette er Michael Wigler, en meget, meget intelligent matematiker,
15:34
turned physicist. And he developed a technique
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der blev fysiker. Og han udviklede en teknik
15:37
which essentially will let us look at sample DNA
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der i bund og grund vil lade os se på en DNA prøve
15:41
and, eventually, a million spots along it.
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og, i sidste ende, kommer der en million prikker.
15:43
There's a chip there, a conventional one. Then there's one
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Der er en chip her, en konventionel en. Så er der en
15:46
made by a photolithography by a company in Madison
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der er lavet af en fotolitograf af et firma i Madison
15:49
called NimbleGen, which is way ahead of Affymetrix.
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der hedder NimbleGen, der er langt foran Affymetrix.
15:54
And we use their technique.
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Og vi bruger deres teknik.
15:56
And what you can do is sort of compare DNA of normal segs versus cancer.
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Og det man kan lave er en slags sammenligning af DNA af normale celler versus kræft.
16:01
And you can see on the top
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Og man kan se i toppen
16:05
that cancers which are bad show insertions or deletions.
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at kræft der er dårligt, viser indførelse eller deletion.
16:10
So the DNA is really badly mucked up,
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Så DNAet kludret helt til,
16:13
whereas if you have a chance of surviving,
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hvorimod hvis man har en chance for at overleve,
16:15
the DNA isn't so mucked up.
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er DNAet ikke så kludret.
16:17
So we think that this will eventually lead to what we call
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Så vi mener at dette i sidste ende vil lede til det vi kalder
16:20
"DNA biopsies." Before you get treated for cancer,
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"DNA biopsi." Inden man bliver behandlet for kræft,
16:24
you should really look at this technique,
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bør man virkelig kigge på denne teknik,
16:26
and get a feeling of the face of the enemy.
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og få en følelse af at se fjenden i øjnene.
16:29
It's not a -- it's only a partial look, but it's a --
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Det er ikke en -- det er kun et delvist syn, men det er et --
16:32
I think it's going to be very, very useful.
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jeg tror det bliver meget, meget brugbart.
16:35
So, we started with breast cancer
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Så, vi begyndte med brystkræft
16:37
because there's lots of money for it, no government money.
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fordi der er mange penge til det, ingen offentlige penge.
16:40
And now I have a sort of vested interest:
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Og nu har jeg lidt en egeninteresse:
16:44
I want to do it for prostate cancer. So, you know,
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jeg gør det for prostatakræft. Så, I ved,
16:46
you aren't treated if it's not dangerous.
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man bliver ikke behandlet hvis det ikke er farligt.
16:49
But Wigler, besides looking at cancer cells, looked at normal cells,
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Men Wigler, foruden at kigge på kræftceller, kiggede på normale celler,
16:55
and made a really sort of surprising observation.
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og jeg lavede virkelig en slags overraskende observation.
16:58
Which is, all of us have about 10 places in our genome
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Hvilket er, vi har alle omkring 10 steder i vores genmasse
17:02
where we've lost a gene or gained another one.
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hvor vi har mistet et gen eller fået endnu et.
17:05
So we're sort of all imperfect. And the question is well,
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Så vi er alle lidt ufuldstændige. Og spørgsmålet er,
17:11
if we're around here, you know,
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hvis vi er her, I ved,
17:13
these little losses or gains might not be too bad.
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disse små tab eller gevinster er måske ikke så slemme.
17:16
But if these deletions or amplifications occurred in the wrong gene,
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Men hvis disse mangler og tilføjelser optræder i det forkerte gen,
17:21
maybe we'll feel sick.
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vil vi måske føle os syge.
17:22
So the first disease he looked at is autism.
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Så den første sygdom han kiggede på er autisme.
17:26
And the reason we looked at autism is we had the money to do it.
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Og grunden til at vi kiggede på autisme er at vi havde pengene til at gøre det.
17:31
Looking at an individual is about 3,000 dollars. And the parent of a child
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At se på et individ er omkring 3.000 dollars. Og en forælder til et barn
17:36
with Asperger's disease, the high-intelligence autism,
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med Aspergers syndrom, høj intelligens autisme,
17:38
had sent his thing to a conventional company; they didn't do it.
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sendte denne ting til en konventionel virksomhed; de gjorde det ikke.
17:43
Couldn't do it by conventional genetics, but just scanning it
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De kunne ikke gøre det med konventionel genetik, men bare ved at scanne det
17:46
we began to find genes for autism.
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begyndte vi at finde gener for autisme.
17:49
And you can see here, there are a lot of them.
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Og man kan se her, at der er mange af dem.
17:53
So a lot of autistic kids are autistic
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Så mange autistiske børn er autister
17:57
because they just lost a big piece of DNA.
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fordi de har mistet et stort stykke DNA.
17:59
I mean, big piece at the molecular level.
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Jeg mener, et stort stykke på molekylært niveau.
18:01
We saw one autistic kid,
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Vi så et autistisk barn,
18:03
about five million bases just missing from one of his chromosomes.
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omkring fem millioner baser mangler ved et af hans kromosomer.
18:06
We haven't yet looked at the parents, but the parents probably
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Vi har ikke kigget på forældrene, men forældrene har sikkert
18:09
don't have that loss, or they wouldn't be parents.
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ikke det tab, ellers ville de ikke være forældrene.
18:12
Now, so, our autism study is just beginning. We got three million dollars.
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Så, nu, starter vores autisme studie kun. Vi har tre millioner dollars.
18:19
I think it will cost at least 10 to 20 before you'd be in a position
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Jeg tror det vil koste mindst 10 eller 20 før man vil være i en position
18:23
to help parents who've had an autistic child,
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til at hjælpe forældre der har fået et autistisk barn,
18:26
or think they may have an autistic child,
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eller tror de måske har et autistisk barn,
18:28
and can we spot the difference?
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og kan se forskellen?
18:30
So this same technique should probably look at all.
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Så denne samme teknik burde nok kigge på alle.
18:33
It's a wonderful way to find genes.
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Det er en vidunderlig måde at finde gener på.
18:37
And so, I'll conclude by saying
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Så, jeg vil slutte med at sige
18:39
we've looked at 20 people with schizophrenia.
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at vi har kigget på 20 mennesker med skizofreni.
18:41
And we thought we'd probably have to look at several hundred
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Og vi troede at vi muligvis havde kigget på adskillige hundrede
18:45
before we got the picture. But as you can see,
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før vi fik ideen. Men som I kan se,
18:47
there's seven out of 20 had a change which was very high.
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er der syv ud af tyve der havde en forandring der var meget høj.
18:51
And yet, in the controls there were three.
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Og alligevel, i kontrollerne var der tre.
18:54
So what's the meaning of the controls?
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Så hvad er meningen med kontroller?
18:56
Were they crazy also, and we didn't know it?
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Var de også skøre, og vidste vi det ikke?
18:58
Or, you know, were they normal? I would guess they're normal.
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Eller, I ved, var de normale? Jeg ville tro at de er normale.
19:02
And what we think in schizophrenia is there are genes of predisposure,
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Og vi mener at der i skizofreni er gener der er prædisponerede,
19:09
and whether this is one that predisposes --
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og om dette er en der prædisponerer --
19:15
and then there's only a sub-segment of the population
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og så er der kun en del segment af befolkningen
19:19
that's capable of being schizophrenic.
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der er i stand til at være skizofren.
19:21
Now, we don't have really any evidence of it,
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Nu har vi ikke rigtig noget bevis på det,
19:25
but I think, to give you a hypothesis, the best guess
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men jeg mener, for at give jer en hypotese, det bedste gæt
19:30
is that if you're left-handed, you're prone to schizophrenia.
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er at hvis man er venstrehåndet, så er der en tilbøjelighed til skizofreni.
19:36
30 percent of schizophrenic people are left-handed,
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30 procent af skizofrene mennesker er venstrehåndende,
19:39
and schizophrenia has a very funny genetics,
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og og skizofreni har en meget sjov genetik,
19:42
which means 60 percent of the people are genetically left-handed,
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hvilket betyder at 60 procent af menneskerne genetisk set er venstrehåndede,
19:46
but only half of it showed. I don't have the time to say.
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men kun halvdelen viste det. Jeg har ikke tiden til at forklare.
19:49
Now, some people who think they're right-handed
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Nu er nogen mennesker der tror de er højrehåndede
19:52
are genetically left-handed. OK. I'm just saying that, if you think,
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genetisk set venstrehåndede. OK. Jeg siger bare at, hvis man mener,
19:58
oh, I don't carry a left-handed gene so therefore my, you know,
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oh, jeg bærer ikke på et venstrehåndet gen så derfor er mine, I ved,
20:02
children won't be at risk of schizophrenia. You might. OK?
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børn ikke i fare for at blive skizofrene. Måske jeres.
20:05
(Laughter)
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(Latter)
20:08
So it's, to me, an extraordinarily exciting time.
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Så det er, for mig, en utrolig spændende tid.
20:11
We ought to be able to find the gene for bipolar;
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Vi bør være i stand til at finde genet for bipolar lidelse;
20:13
there's a relationship.
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der er et forhold.
20:14
And if I had enough money, we'd find them all this year.
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Og hvis jeg havde nok penge, ville vi finde dem alle i år.
20:18
I thank you.
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Jeg takker jer.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
James Watson - Biologist, Nobel laureateNobel laureate James Watson took part in one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century: the discovery of the structure of DNA. More than 50 years later, he continues to investigate biology's deepest secrets.
Why you should listen
James Watson has led a long, remarkable life, starting at age 12, when he was one of radio's high-IQ Quiz Kids. By age 15, he had enrolled in the University of Chicago, and by 25, working with Francis Crick (and drawing, controversially, on the research of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin), he had made the discovery that would eventually win the three men the Nobel Prize.
Watson and Crick's 1953 discovery of DNA's double-helix structure paved the way for the astounding breakthroughs in genetics and medicine that marked the second half of the 20th century. And Watson's classic 1968 memoir of the discovery, The Double Helix, changed the way the public perceives scientists, thanks to its candid account of the personality conflicts on the project.
From 1988 to 1994, he ran the Human Genome Project. His current passion is the quest to identify genetic bases for major illnesses; in 2007 he put his fully sequenced genome online, the second person to do so, in an effort to encourage personalized medicine and early detection and prevention of diseases.
James Watson | Speaker | TED.com