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Sydney Brenner: Complete Transcript Collection
A collection of 236 video transcripts from Web of Stories
Sections
236
Read time
2+ hours
Words
89k
Table of Contents
Contents
1.
Coming from Eastern European stock
2.
Mother and father
3.
Where did the insult 'Peruvian Jew' come from
4.
Early memories of living in a shop
5.
Learning to read from the tablecloth
6.
Accelerated early schooling
7.
Libraries
8.
The early books that inspired me to do chemistry
9.
Never more than top six in high school
10.
Beaten, bullied and strangled
11.
Self motivation and independent learning
12.
Humans' interest in science
13.
Going to Johannesburg University to study medicine
14.
Minyan Man
15.
Science at university: Weinstein, Roux and Karnovsky
16.
Edward Roux
17.
My sad story of Harold Daitz
18.
Joseph Gillman
19.
Seymour Papert
20.
The beginning of my interest in biochemistry
21.
Realising my lecturers knew nothing
22.
What we learnt at medical school
23.
Doing an additional BSc year
24.
Joe Gillman's philosophy of science
25.
Getting into the philosophy of science
26.
Lab cocktails
27.
My first ever research paper
28.
Why I love pigments
29.
Archaeology and palaeontology
30.
Forming a territorial army
31.
The Army camps
32.
Geology: expedition with Alexander du Toit
33.
"To Serve Man"
34.
Language and wordplay
35.
The Nadi reaction
36.
My MSc in working out the chromosome complement of Elephantulus
37.
Microscopy
38.
Broad academic discussion as a student
39.
Passing the time with medicine
40.
Being the best in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
41.
Scientific work undertaken during medical school
42.
Experiments: really finding things out
43.
Cambridge or Oxford?
44.
Hunting for future-proof sciences
45.
John von Neumann and the history of DNA and self-replication
46.
Schrödinger wrong, von Neumann right
47.
Schrödinger's belief in calculating an organism from chromosomes
48.
Automata akin to living cells
49.
Biology doesn't allow for relaxing baths
50.
Work on phage with Hinshelwood in Oxford
51.
Taking advantage of Oxford University
52.
Professor Dawkins and "Quest for Corvo"
53.
The Surprise of England
54.
My secret input into the DNA model
55.
The DNA model: the beginning of molecular biology
56.
Crick, Watson and the first model of the double helix
57.
The first and second DNA structure papers
58.
The real concept of the DNA code
59.
Understanding the DNA model
60.
Impressions of Watson and Crick
61.
Enzymologists reject the model of DNA
62.
The fusion of genetics and biochemistry
63.
The power of luck and ignorance
64.
Seymour Benzer
65.
Physicists preparing for biology
66.
Scientific interaction with Francis Crick
67.
Being a heretic got me to Cold Spring Harbor
68.
Overlapping triplet code: George Gamow's diamond code
69.
Overlapping triplet code: eliminating all overlapping triplet code
70.
Seymour Benzer: the end of the classical gene
71.
Main elements of modern molecular biology
72.
Gamow: cracking the code
73.
The annual phage meeting: Leó Szilárd
74.
Leó Szilárd
75.
Caught in Hurricane Carol with James Watson
76.
Coast-to-coast road trip with Jim Watson
77.
Preparing to die in the desert
78.
Making plans with James Watson
79.
The RNA Tie Club
80.
The 'old days' experiments
81.
The gene protein problem
82.
The decision to join the Cavendish Laboratory
83.
Going to South Africa
84.
Fred Sanger on the structure of insulin
85.
Growing bacteriophage in a Hoover washing machine
86.
Taking the electron microscope out of the hands of the elite
87.
Anecdotes from the MRC lab
88.
The MRC lab at Cambridge: X-ray crystallography
89.
The MRC lab at Cambridge: Computers and determining structures
90.
Making mutant spectra with acid
91.
Purifying tRNA
92.
Purifying tRNA (Part 2)
93.
The first official use of Molecular Biology
94.
Genetics of the rII and the gene protein problem
95.
DNA and RNA synthesis
96.
François Jacob and Jacques Monod
97.
Volkin-Astrachan RNA and Phage
98.
Experimenting in California
99.
Experiments with 'Tape RNA'
100.
Using magnesium to compete with caesium: radioactive Coca-Cola
101.
Using magnesium to compete with caesium: the experiment
102.
Still working on mutagenesis
103.
Acceptance of the paper
104.
François Jacob and genetics
105.
The curtain opens: the importance of conversation
106.
Internal suppressors: the Theory of Mutagenesis
107.
Another hypothesis: base additions and deletions
108.
Sense and nonsense: the Commaless Code
109.
Using frame-shift to determine the size of the genetic code
110.
Exceptions to the frame-shift rules
111.
A completely interlocking theory
112.
Lab space
113.
Experimenting with adding messengers to ribosomes
114.
The state of biochemistry in Britain
115.
1962: a new lab and a new way of working
116.
The importance of understanding molecular structure (Part 1)
117.
The importance of understanding molecular structure (Part 2)
118.
Looking for a new subject and inventing names
119.
DNA replication
120.
DNA replication: the first experiment
121.
Issues of the organisation of DNA replication in a bacterial cell
122.
DNA replication: isolating temperature sensitive mutants
123.
Conditional lethals
124.
Virus assembly
125.
Deciding to work on higher organisms
126.
The next important problem: development and differentiation
127.
Reasons for choosing to work on the nervous system
128.
Choosing an organism to study
129.
Choosing the nematode
130.
Starting to work with nematodes and Richard Goldschmidt's paper
131.
Predicting behaviour from genes
132.
Relating genes to function
133.
How amber mutants were so-called
134.
The Amber mutants
135.
Discovering other mutants
136.
Continued experiments in molecular genetics (Part 1)
137.
Continued experiments in molecular genetics (Part 2)
138.
Genetic suppression: our beginnings with genetic engineering
139.
Lambdoid phages: phage 80 (Part 1)
140.
Lambdoid phages: phage 80 (Part 2)
141.
Caulobacter and tetramitus
142.
Cultivating organisms and pervertebrates
143.
The unique research environment in the Cambridge labs
144.
Satisfaction of completing 20 years studying *Caenorhabditis elegans*
145.
Choosing electron microscopy to study mutants
146.
The importance of finding the wiring diagram
147.
Encoding in DNA requires the correct 'language'
148.
Martini's with Lord Rothschild leads to Nichol Thomson joining the team
149.
'Just bring me back some soil from holiday'
150.
*Caenorhabditis elegans*: the perfect hermaphrodite
151.
Using John Sulston's method for freezing nematodes
152.
E1: The first isolated *Caenorhabditis elegans* mutant
153.
Mendelian experiments with behavioural mutants
154.
*Caenorhabditis elegans*: finding drug resistant mutants
155.
Diffusion gradients in development
156.
Francis Crick's interest in gradients
157.
'Émigrés' often make the best discoveries
158.
Computing: the beginning of the love affair
159.
Modular 1: The first computer for the lab
160.
Writing my own computing language for Trac
161.
Lineage and special computation: European plan vs American plan
162.
Genes make proteins, but what for?
163.
Molecular recognition using the Beilstein paradox
164.
Theories may be logical but not natural
165.
We must be careful when making analogies in science
166.
A meeting with the President of the British Computing Society
167.
The importance of conversation for science
168.
The freedom to work without short-term justification
169.
Estimating the genetic complexity of *Caenorhabditis elegans*
170.
Isolating the gene proteins of the nematodes
171.
'Leaky' mutants may give clues to the evolution of development
172.
Analysis of epistasis within nematodes
173.
The C paradox inspires Francis Crick to ideas about regulation
174.
Dispute over the repetitive DNA in *Caenorhabditis elegans*
175.
Extra DNA is kept like junk, not thrown out like garbage
176.
A new technique to get down to the molecular basis
177.
Inserting nematode DNA into *Bacillus subtilis*
178.
Using my invented unit - Av - in an experiment
179.
The beginning of controversy in genetic manipulation
180.
My predictions of synthesising at the Ashby commission
181.
Suggesting 'The Book of Man' at the Asilomar Conference 1975
182.
The influence of the press at the Asilomar conference 1975
183.
Is Lion DNA more dangerous than pussycat DNA?
184.
Scientists and social responsibility
185.
Testing possible safe strains on myself
186.
Cloning viruses to make them safer to work with
187.
A big danger in genetic manipulation: Shiga toxin and *E. coli*
188.
The two eras of developmental biology: Before Cloning and After DNA
189.
Dealing with the monsters above and the idiots below
190.
Resigning as director and renewing my interest in the nervous system
191.
Links between the Human Genome project and *Caenorhabditis elegans*
192.
I am a strong believer in the value of ignorance
193.
Wanting a new and challenging problem to study
194.
Thomas Hunt Morgan and *Drosophila*
195.
How to study development?
196.
How do genes control development?
197.
Digital and analogue analogies
198.
'Have A Look' biology
199.
Reading rots the mind
200.
How do I deal with a saturated memory?
201.
My collection of journal reprints
202.
Teaching yourself through reading
203.
Working routines: owls and larks
204.
My reasons for choosing *Caenorhabditis elegans*
205.
Why choose *Caenorhabditis elegans* for gene-behaviour link?
206.
Are organisms computable by their DNA?
207.
The oldest biological observation
208.
We must use the right language when trying to compute behaviour
209.
Biology needs to be an integrative subject
210.
Scientific progress: The heroic and classical periods
211.
The effect of competition in science
212.
Fraud and embezzlement in science
213.
The rewards of being a scientist
214.
Falling in love with a mistake
215.
Molecular genetics and gene cloning
216.
Inside-out genetics gives faster results
217.
The daring act of sequencing the human genome
218.
Sequencing the human genome in a bingo hall
219.
Human Genome project generates new funds for science
220.
Differences between human and fish DNA
221.
Fugu: the puffer fish genome
222.
Benefitting from less junk in Fugu DNA
223.
From fish to man in DNA
224.
Putting fish genes into humans and mice
225.
The genetics of evolution
226.
My strengths and weaknesses
227.
Evaluation of my character
228.
Thoughts on creativity
229.
Ways to approach science
230.
The balance between ignorance and knowledge
231.
My greatest achievements
232.
My failures
233.
The exciting future of biology
234.
The profession of science will change
235.
Personal interests outside of science
236.
Scientific heroes
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