A Nobel Prize-winning scientist discussed his lifelong passion for microorganisms yesterday.
Sir Richard Roberts, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine and member of the Royal Society, spoke at an event titled “Why I Love Bacteria!” Thursday morning. Roberts, who helped discover split genes, stressed the disconnect in communication that can occur between the public, scientists and politicians about bacteria.
“I think that we scientists need to do a better job in explaining the problems we face to the public and to politicians, so that action to fight these problems can be steadfast and smarter,” Roberts said.
Jeffrey Spaeder, chief medical and scientific officer for Quintiles—the pharmaceutical company that sponsored the event—introduced Roberts and his work in discovering introns in eukaryotic DNA and the mechanism of gene-splicing.
“We must understand the structure of the world in order to make scientific progress,” Spaeder said. “Sir Richard Roberts has made a career using this fundamental principle.”
The ancestors of today’s bacteria were the first forms of life on Earth.
“Anabaena provided oxygen to Earth’s atmosphere but ironically ended up polluting the oceans, similar to how humans are detrimentally affecting their surroundings,” Roberts said.
Roberts noted that there is a misconception that most bacteria are harmful to humans.
“The majority of bacteria have no effect on humans,” he said. “And the rest of the bacteria are fairly evenly split between good and bad bacteria.”
People often seem to be at odds with bacteria, Roberts said. In cases such as tuberculosis, for example, bacteria constantly evolve despite people’s attempts to get vaccinated against the disease, he added.
“When you defeat one bacteria, what you are doing is inviting along another one,” Roberts said.
Resistance to bacteria can be harmful to humans.
“We need to be more sensible with respect to antibiotic use because we use them indiscriminately in places like the food industry, where they serve no genuine purpose other than to increase animal weight,” Roberts said.
He cited pharmaceutical companies as one industry that encourages unnecessary antibiotic use, adding that some politicians neglect the environment to the point of compromising the future of the human race.
“What is more serious than any scientific problem is that we are polluting ourselves out of this Earth,” he said.
For the 1.7 million people in the U.S. who get an infection each year, 70 percent of the bacteria causing such infections are resistant to at least one drug routinely used to treat those infections, according to the National Institutes of Health’s website. Roberts noted that the NIH has substantially cut its funding to some bacteria-related projects, but other sectors—such as synthetic biology—are thriving.
The Pratt School of Engineering has several programs that cater to synthetic biology research and hosts the annual Synthetic Biology Symposium.
Geoffrey Ginsburg, director of genomic medicine in the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, said he believes Roberts’ speech had a lasting effect on the audience.
“I think that these are important events for Duke, particularly for our students, trainees and young faculty,” Ginsburg said. “A moment with [the likes of] Sir Richard could have a profound impact on their career trajectories and their futures.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.