Winter 1999
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As you read this, thousands of scientists around the globe are forging ahead on one of the greatest scientific investigations ever conducted. The researchers are seeking nothing less than to fully understand DNA, the substance responsible for carrying hereditary information from one generation to the next in organisms as different as redwoods and rottweilers.
"In humans, we want to know how genes control the development of one cell--the fertilized egg--into the millions of cells that become a baby. We want to understand the mechanism that tells the cells to go to the right place and do the right thing--for example, to become an eyeball, a backbone, or a finger," says University of Oregon biologist John Postlethwait.
Conversely, researchers in this area are also discovering why cells sometimes don't go to the right place and don't do the right thing. Such discoveries will have--and are already having--a dramatic impact on our understanding of the hundreds of developmental and genetic diseases that affect millions of Americans.
Postlethwait's own research is making a huge contribution to this effort. As unlikely as it may seem, his method of understanding the complexities of DNA and heredity is by investigating the genetic structure of a fish. The tiny tropical zebrafish has become an increasingly important biomedical research tool. First cloned at the UO in the early 1980s, the zebrafish has been at the heart of UO genetics research ever since. Today, the UO has five major zebrafish laboratories staffed by 50 researchers; around the world, 200 labs work with zebrafish.
Postlethwait is the world's leading mapper of the genetic information in zebrafish DNA. A parallel research effort--the human genome project--is expected to achieve its goal of mapping human genetic information by 2003.
The task is monumental. If all the information contained in the DNA sequence of a human being were printed, it would require the equivalent of 200 volumes the size of a Manhattan telephone book (at 1,000 pages each). This information, in humans and all other species, is broken down into genes. Zebrafish have about 100,000 genes. Scientists have mapped a total of about 300 zebrafish genes--Postlethwait's group of researchers is responsible for 200 of these.
"Humans and zebrafish branched away from each other on the evolutionary tree about 420 million years ago," Postlethwait says, "but the amount of genetic information we hold in common is truly remarkable."
The more that is known about the DNA of each species, the more scientists can learn by crosschecking back and forth between the DNA maps.
The National Institutes of Health (a division of the U.S. Public Health Service that funds biomedical research) understands the value of teasing apart the mysteries of DNA. The NIH recently awarded Postlethwait's lab $2.5 million to support research into the genetic correspondence between humans and zebrafish. In addition, it is funding a zebrafish stock center to be built at the UO under the direction of Postlethwait's colleague Monte Westerfield. The stock center will store thousands of genetically distinct strains of zebrafish--strains that Postlethwait calls irreplaceable--to be made available to researchers at the UO and around the world.
Looking to the future, Postlethwait believes that the next important step for nurturing science at the UO is the completion of the Brain, Biology, and Machine Initiative (see "Taking the Initiative").
"The BBMI would be a great help in recruiting talented grad students and postdocs," he says. "It calls for more and better facilities, and that equates with more and better students. Having more topnotch people in allied fields makes for increased interdisciplinary collaboration--already a hallmark of the research community here at the UO."
More top researchers also produce a greater number of important scientific publications, Postlethwait explains, and this can benefit undergraduates. For example, when he published his first major paper on zebrafish mapping in the prestigious journal Science, nine undergraduates were listed as coauthors. In late 1998, another Postlethwait paper in Science listed two undergraduate coauthors. Conducting important research side by side with a world-renowned researcher can provide an undergraduate with great experience, but publishing that research in a well-respected journal can also give a big boost to a budding student's career in this highly competitive field.
Postlethwait asserts that the BBMI will benefit society at large.
"People want to know how we got to be how we are. What regulates cell growth? Why are some individuals prone to alcoholism, schizophrenia, violence? How or to what extent are these conditions genetically determined?
"If society is interested in advancing its knowledge of human health in areas like these, or if society is concerned about birth defects, miscarriages, and infertility," Postlethwait insists, "then strong support for the Brain, Biology, and Machine Initiative is a terrific investment."