Musings for Young Scientists
Authors: INDER M. VERMA
Journal: Molecular Therapy (2004)

What is it to be a scientist? A scientist seeks the truth and pursues it with vigor and open-mindedness, so as to produce a hypothesis that can be sustained by experimentation. In graduate school, we learnt the arduous task of conceiving and performing an experiment, and presenting the data to our colleagues and mentor—only to realize, perhaps, that a crucial control was missing. Initially crestfallen, we nonetheless returned to the bench to tackle the problem with renewed vigor. Through iterations of this process, we transitioned from experimentalist to thinker and back to experimentalist. Sir Isaac Newton, when asked how he made his discoveries, replied: “By always thinking about them. I keep the subject constantly before me and wait until the first drawings open little by little into the full light.” I came to this country in 1971, armed with a Ph.D. in biochemistry and just enough money to pay a security deposit and first month's rent. I wanted to do the big experiment that would change science and bring fame. Reality set in before long—but I persevered, persisted, and never lost hope. According to Paul Ehrlich, the father of immunology, scientists need the four G's: Geshick (skill), Geduld (patience), Geld (money), and Gluck (luck). I will add to these a fifth element—passion—passion for your science. Science is hard work and there is no short cut to hard work. Science becomes a way of life, a sort of religious credo. One's career may go through peaks and valleys, but the life is never dull. It was a mere hundred years ago that Mendel's laws of inheritance were discovered. Fifty years later, the double-helical structure of DNA was unveiled, and now we have in our hands the blueprint of the entire human genome—all 3.2 billion bases of it. We can now print segments of the genome on a tiny chip to detect the expression of genes of interest. We can extract the scarcest of genetic material from a single hair—even from an Egyptian mummy thousands of years old. We can eliminate any gene at will in a mouse so as to study its role in growth, development, and disease. Hardly a day goes by without the announcement of an interesting scientific discovery. Not all news is good—the continuing AIDS epidemic, the new obesity epidemic, the dwindling ozone layer and global warming. Clearly, there is much to do. With knowledge comes responsibility. Science serves society and therefore, it is in the scientist's interest to keep the public informed and engaged. A poorly informed society is more likely to be suspicious of science. The great 16th century astronomer Galileo Galilei had to recant his support of the Heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus when charged of heresy by the Church in 1633. Galileo wrote, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” There is no doubt that science can and has been used for both good and bad. But does this mean we stop unlocking the secrets of stem cell biology, for example, simply because of the remote chance that certain rogue elements might exploit it for human cloning? I believe that good will far outweighs the evil use of science to help mankind. Scientists nevertheless have a responsibility to humanity. Joseph Priestley, discoverer of oxygen, wrote “It will be an infinite advantage to all states if the following maxims were adopted by all their members. First to think with freedom, second to speak and write with boldness, third to suffer in good cause with patience, and fourth to begin to act with caution but to proceed with vigor. The rapid progress of knowledge is like the progress of a wave of light or of sound. It extends itself not only this way or that way, but in all directions and over all time.”