Alex Palazzo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at The University of Toronto.
In yesterday's NY Times, James Gorman laments that lingo from molecular biology and cell biology hasn't yet permeated society. As Gorman states:
Molecular biology is the science of this century. We should be able to build some great clichés on it.
This topic reminds me of a conversation that I once had with my academic advisor and a certain Caveman. Why is that when you open the paper, you never read about all the cool developments in Cell Biology?
Lets face it. The paper is full of headlines such as "New Planet Discovered" or "Extinct Species Makes a Reappearance" or "Probing the Realm of Subatomic Particles" ... but when it comes to Cell Biology or Molecular Biology (aka the science of this century) the headlines are along the lines of "Jellyfish Protein Expressed in Monkey Cell". Open the NY Times Science section and ask yourself, where are all the articles on Cell Biology (or Molecular Biology or Biochemistry)? Recently the trend has begun to change. Stem cells and RNAi have had their brief moments of media exposure, but these articles had the intent of publicizing how new medical treatments are 'round the corner. You never see articles about the wonders of Cell Biology ... such as "Motor Proteins, Monster Trucks of the Molecular World" or the "How the Heck Do Cells Move?". Here are some theories as to why there are no "golly gee" stories about Cell Biology:
1) The Frankenstein effect. Lets face it. In pop culture, physicists are probing deep questions, while biomedical scientists are either cloning Hitler, engineering monstrous hybrid plants/animals or simply playing God with disastrous results.
2) Most science writers are trained by the NSF while most life-science writers have a medical background. Basic life-science gets shafted. Where are all those ex-life scientists that have entered "science writing"? They either work for Big Pharma, some lawyers or some doctors.
3) Many Cell Biologists, Molecular Biologist and Biochemists are segregated from the rest of the academic comunity at some far flung medical campus. Science reporters never visit them and medical reporters head off to the clinical departments. Of course the problem with this theory is that there are plenty of schools where this is not the case.
4) People don't care about cells. This last possibility has been tested, and I can tell you that it is not so. Any non-biologist who has visited my lab has been wowed by seeing cells under the microscope. And if they see a microtubule array, I've never heard anything less than "incredible!"
5) It's our fault. We scientists should head into the streets and convert the masses ... hallelujah! ... OK maybe it's too much to ask your everyday, overworked scientist to go door to door, but how about all these great societies such as AAAS, ASCB or FASEB?
BTW, Caveman had a suggestion, BTV, as in Bio TV. For example ... a Lab version of House or ER. I can see it now "OK folks, this week we've got to tackle cancer. You get the latest info on p53. You get those IPs going. C'mon guys we only have two days left before the grant deadline!"
Or maybe we should act on Gorman's remarks and try to infiltrate the English languish. "Can we eat now, I think that I'm undergoing autophagy."
Any suggestions? Why? And what to do?
Comments
I think a lot of it comes down to the ability to spark people's interest. Cell biologists often focus on such a tiny portion of a cell's machinery that they sometimes forget to back up and tell the big picture story.
People instinctively react to things they have experienced or seen. The term "cell division" doesn't mean much to most people, but they all know someone with cancer. They don't know about the immune system, but they understand that HIV is bad - etc.
You've got to relate your work back to a specific disorder, or some phenomenon that people have seen and understand if you want mass appeal. When you say "microtubule array" you might as well be speaking greek to much of the country.
Posted by: Chris | September 20, 2006 3:13 PM
Heh, nice one Alex. I'm trying to get the artists and professional wordsmiths who seem to make up much of my readership to come up with ideas...
Posted by: BK | September 20, 2006 7:58 PM