Evolution Quotes by Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Every genetic “illness” is a mismatch between an organism’s genome and its environment.”

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“genotype + environment + triggers + chance = phenotype”

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Freaks become norms, and norms become extinct. Monster by monster, evolution advanced”

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“gene (information -> encodes protein (form) -> enables function”

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“In 1905, still struggling for an alternative, Bateson coined a word of his own. Genetics, he called it: the study of heredity…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“There is no such thing as perfection, only the relentless, thirsty matching of an organism to its environment. That is the engine…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“We now know that cells have ancient detectors that recognize viral genes and stamp them with chemical marks, like cancellation signs, to…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“As I write this, organisms endowed with genomes are learning to change the heritable features of organisms endowed with genomes.”

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“How can one capture genes that behave like ghosts," Weinberg wrote, "influencing cells from behind some dark curtain?”

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Epigenetics, Waddington wrote, concerns "the interaction of genes with their environment (...) that brings their phenotype into being.”

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“With DNA as with words, the sequence carries the meaning. Dissolve DNA into its constituent bases, and it turns into a primordial…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Evolution can craft perfectly adapted organisms, but not in an intentional manner: it is not just a "blind watchmaker", but also a…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“but perhaps within the next five to ten years, certain inborn errors . . . will be treated or cured by the administration of a…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Dimly, as if through a veil, geneticists were beginning to visualize patterns and themes: threads, strings, maps, crossings, broken and unbroken lines,…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“In 1977, when Fred Sanger had sequenced the genome of the phiX virus, with 5,386 bases of DNA, that number represented the…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Mutants are necessary to maintain the essence of our selves. Our genomes has negotiated a fragile balance between counterpoised forces, pairing strand…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“The factor VIII project, both teams knew, would challenge the outer limits of gene-cloning technology. Somatostatin had 14 amino acids; insulin had…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Six decades and two years, no more than a passing glance of time, separate Mendel's initial experiments on peas and the court-mandated…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“The experiments progress slowly," Mendel wrote. "At first a certain amount of patience was needed, but I soon found that matters went…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Our knowledge of… molecular defects in cancer has come from a dedicated twenty years of the best molecular biology research. Yet this…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“In the late 1970s, scientists working on gene-silencing discovered that the attachment of a small molecule-a methyl group-to DNA was correlated with…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“In 1957, Pardee, Monod, and Jacob discovered that the lactose operon was controlled by a single master switch-a protein eventually called the…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“It is the form of hemoglobin, then, that permits its function. The physical structure of the molecule enables its chemical nature, the…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“It is fiercely inventive. It squeezes complexity out of simplicity. It orchestrates the activation or repression of certain genes in only certain…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Every genetic “illness” is a mismatch between an organism’s genome and its environment. In some cases, the appropriate medical intervention to mitigate…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“The Book of Man (in Twenty-Three Volumes) It has 3,088,286,401 letters of DNA (give or take a few). Published as a book…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Although we fully understand the genetic code-i.e., how the information in a single gene is used to build a protein-we comprehend virtually…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“The fact that the genome also encodes genes to repair damage to the genome was discovered by several geneticists, including Evelyn Witkin…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“By the end of this decade, permutations and combinations of genetic variants will be used to predict variations in human phenotype, illness,…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“One of the four genes used by Yamanaka to reverse cellular fate is called c-myc. Myc, the rejuvenating factor, is no ordinary…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“But perhaps an even greater principle was at stake, Bateson realized. The flow of biological information was not restricted to heredity. It…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“It is a testament to the unsettling beauty of the genome that it can make the real world “stick.” Our genes do…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“It is the impulse of science to understand nature, and the impulse of technology to try to manipulate it. Recombinant DNA had…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Second, the production of RNA Messages was coordinately regulated. When the sugar source was switched to lactose, the bacteria turned on an…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“The gene responsible for creating white eyes (called white eyed), for instance, was inescapably linked to maleness: no matter how Morgan crossed…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“The helix contains two intertwined strands of DNA. It is "right-handed"-twisting upward as if driven by a right-handed screw. Across the molecule,…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“The gene provides an organizing principle for modern biology—and it tantalizes us with the prospect of controlling our bodies and fates.”

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“It has repeated elements that appear frequently. A pesky, mysterious three-hundred-base-pair sequence called Alu appears and reappears tens of thousands of times,…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“It was a Rube Goldberg disease. A change in the sequence of a gene caused the change in the sequence of a…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee

“Like the master score of a bewitchingly complex symphonic work, the genome contains the instructions for the development and maintenance of organisms.…

— Siddhartha Mukherjee