Читать книгу Viruses: More Friends Than Foes (Revised Edition) - Karin Moelling - Страница 5

We stand on the shoulders of giants. Standing next to giants, I have over the decades made the acquaintance of some of the most prominent researchers of my generation — listening to and watching them, mostly with high admiration and respect, and sometimes contributing myself. On this basis, but also to some extent in opposition to what I saw, this book was initiated as an “anti-virus book”. Viruses as we usually encounter them are dangerous, terrifying creatures; they are destructive, threatening and downright nasty. However, they contribute to our existence, to our environment, to the development of life and to evolution. They are parts of our genes! This positive side of viruses and microorganisms is almost always ignored, and they deserve more credit for it than they are generally given. Here the reader will encounter this other world of viruses, and I hope that our journey through it will be entertaining, not sinister, not too scientific, always a bit relaxing, sometimes provocative, scientifically up to date, and sometimes a little futuristic.

Every reader will find occasion to be surprised about the viruses: where they are active on our planet, in the oceans, in our gardens and trees, inside and outside our body — including guts, brain, or birth canal. The viruses influence our well-being, our souls, fear or courageousness, depression, freedom and decision-making — and to give an example: even obesity. Imagine, HIV-like viruses made egg-laying obsolete for us humans since millions of years. I hope that readers will be fascinated more than once — as indeed I was too during writing.

I was studying and teaching about the disease-causing viruses for more than 40 years — which are not the main topic here — so, I know about HIV/AIDS — but I believe that most viral diseases are man-made due to poverty, lack of hygiene, mobility, or habits.

The reader will set off on a journey into the innermost part of what makes up our world. Today, Goethe’s or Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus would quite probably be a molecular biologist — perhaps even a virologist, because the “Viro-sphere” includes the whole world, even the universe! Perhaps Goethe would have honored the viruses if he knew about their existence and their importance.

Indeed, the “Homunculus”, which Goethe designed, places Dr. Faustus close to our molecular world. How did life start? And how does it end? How do progress and innovation come about — of course by viruses and their famous “sloppiness”. And the “noisy lemurs, which fall head-over-tail into their graves” can also be found here, even though they are not quite like those in Goethe’s “Faust” — in fact, they are very strange creatures, which since 13 million years carry HIV-like viruses!

The book does not need to be read from beginning to end, but rather by choosing, picking, jumping, turning over pages, and skipping passages if they seem too difficult or contain too much scientific detail. A glossary and list of references is provided for further information. However, the end, the last chapter, is intended for everybody, as it condenses and summarises many details, with voices combined in a final tutti as at the end of a fugue by my hero, Johann Sebastian Bach.

I take the risk of reflecting on how science progresses, and on what forces drive the everyday activities of research scientists. I consider myself as a witness, a spectator, who can describe some of my own experiences — though with the idea and the hope that they will be taken as representative and general, and not appear too personal. At some points my comments will be quite critical, but I write without bitterness or resentment — rather, slightly amused about what happened, what I missed, and what today still keeps me going. So some parts are detective story-like for entertainment. Other parts are rather philosophical, so you, dear reader, can choose.

A colleague characterized the German version of this book as three volumes in one: a detective story about scientists, a popular account of science spanning many decades, and a philosophical work. I am not a philosopher, but science leads us to wonder and to reflect. Another apposite comment comes from the German writer and film-producer Alexander Kluge in his recent “Chronicle”, in which he describes me as story-teller of “Goodnight Stories”, just like the ones he liked to listen to by his nanny as a 5-year-old boy. There are two options, then, either you fall asleep or you find the stories amusing and simple enough to listen. I am writing not only for academic colleagues from similar or related fields, but also, and perhaps primarily, for students and for lay people of all kinds — readers who can simply ignore some of the more specialized scientific remarks. Read about Cesarean sections or Dutch Famine and their consequences for the newborns. Did you know that viruses can “see”? Or look at the chapter on tulips, the first financial crisis ever — with viruses as the cause! Thus, economists may also learn some surprising facts.

Whom do I have to thank? All those whom I have met — not only the giants, because every human being is inspiring and has something to hand on to others. I have always liked to listen to the “little shots”.

So many people and organisations have contributed so much to my life; these contributions are interwoven to such an extent that they cannot be separated any more. Many have supported me: my parents, school, universities, funding organisations, scholarships, research organisations, as well as society as a whole. They have all accompanied me along the path and allowed me to find my way. Not least, they have financed my research, the most expensive hobby on earth: on viruses and cancer.

Along the way, I have always had to interact with young people, many of whom it was my responsibility to motivate and support — this I did not only as a duty, but also with great pleasure and enjoyment, sometimes with success They kept me young and flexible. And, last but not least: strong enemies made me strong. This last challenge was harder to meet than it sounds, and I had no idea how to cope with it — so I took a colleague’s advice: “Hide in a sewer, close the cover, and try to produce good papers — that will be your life-saver!”

The foundation Studienstiftung showed great generosity and patience in supporting my unexpected transition from physics to molecular biology at Berkeley, USA, at a time when student riots were raging across the campus; in fact, the Studienstiftung made that transition possible. The decision to dive into the unknown, the field of molecular biology, at a time when nobody could even explain to me what molecular biology was about, was one of the hardest I have ever had to take. Then I became a researcher and scientist against everybody’s advice. The Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, supported me so that I was able to perform independent research for twenty years, during which time I had the good luck to obtain several novel results on viruses and cancer, that carried me on into the future, even though this turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated. All this happened at times when women were as rare in the Max Planck Society “as in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Herbert von Karajan, or in the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church”. At the time they had one each: Sabine Meyer, the then very young clarinettist, and Saint Mary, mother of Jesus — as Heinz Schuster, then Director of the Max Planck Institute, stressed in a public lecture. I was lucky and profited from his support.

I am very grateful to the University of Zürich for allowing me to perform my research over many years and for taking the courageous decision to appoint me, as a non-medical doctor, to the Medical Faculty — as the only female Director in the “pre-gender” era. “Keep your mouth shut in public” was a serious advice from a friend, who knew the scene and his colleagues — so obviously not everybody was equally convinced. I should have been more obedient.

I am grateful to Manfred Eigen, at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, for his numerous generous invitations to the RNA world of his renowned annual Winter Seminars in Klosters, Switzerland, where some of the ideas discussed in this book were initiated. I was admitted as a retrovirologist — since Eigen regarded these viruses as a great model for evolution, as the reader will see. I admired Eigen’s broad knowledge and visions — and how his often simple calculations about reaction kinetics, numbers, interaction parameters made some speakers get lost.

I also thank the Institutes for Advanced Study at Berlin and at Princeton for their invitations and their support, for their stimulating atmospheres where ideas could be created and grow in a milieu of discussion, and for the fantastic invitation to enter very distant new worlds of thought. I hanker after the use of blackboard and chalk, as these evoke memories of the most lively and spontaneous discussions at Princeton. John Hopfield or Freeman Dyson at the blackboard will always be unforgettable for me. Thinking about neuronal networks or quantum mechanics they asked completely different questions than brain-washed insiders do. Dyson warned me about writing a book on viruses: “People want to know about people, people do not want to know about genetics!” I tried to follow his advice while writing this book.

My special thanks go to my former students, co-workers and co-authors on so many papers, whose work I refer to in various chapters, and who kept me young and energetic. Most of them were so enthusiastic about science that they often forgot about career planning and to think about their future. We spent many enjoyable hours and a significant part of my life together.

My special thanks go to Felix Broecker for his critical reading of the German and the English versions of the book from the point of view of a young scientist, and for verifying the many updates, numbers, facts, credits, names, and references to other publications. I am grateful to Ulrike Kahle-Steinweh for her comments from the point of view of a lay person and her never-failing encouragement. Also Alfred Pingoud, who sadly enough has already passed away, deserved many thanks, not least because he was not always of the same opinion as I was. My thanks also go to Stefan Bollmann — who was this book’s editor at the German publisher C.H. Beck, and who suffered from but tolerated my style — and to Paul Woolley, who edited the first draft of my English manuscript.

I have had to experience the limits of cancer research twice in a sad way. I dedicate this book to the memory of Heinz Schuster, one of the founders of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. He was enthusiastic and supportive of my work, and a close and generous friend. I dedicate this book also to Paul Gredinger, in Zurich — a non-scientist, who regretted knowing so little about science, he would study in his “next life”. He was known as an innovative creative operator of an Art and Think Tank. He gave me the unforgettable advice: If someone steals your results, it is an honor for you. And most importantly: Do not attend the meetings of your peers but of your non-peers; that is much more innovative. He was so right. Both of them I was allowed to accompany, to share ideas and thoughts with. They inspired me, they made my life happy — and often they had more confidence in me than I myself had.

Twice I had to learn to say goodbye forever — farewells that I cannot forget. I have tried to by writing this book.

Berlin/Zurich, 2016

Karin Moelling