On the Naming of Parts

7 Responses to On the Naming of Parts

1. Henry Gee says:

   22 February 2008 at 01:08

   In Structure–Function Defects of the TWINKLE Linker Regional/
   You’d be the very model of a modern major-general.
2. Richard P. Grant says:

   22 February 2008 at 01:12

   haha hhaaahhah hhahhah.
   Brilliant, Henry.
3. Matt Brown says:

   22 February 2008 at 11:41

   Vote for the Funniest Protein Names
   I want to work on lunatic fringe.
4. Cath Ennis says:

   22 February 2008 at 14:50

   I used to work on a gene called SPAM. Cue Monty Python jokes in all my presentations. The people who knew what the hell I was talking about loved it, everyone else was most confused!
5. Heather Etchevers says:

   22 April 2008 at 09:06

   I’ve worked on lunatic fringe. Also Sonic hedgehog, iroquois, notch, jumonji, twist, cap ‘n’ collar and many others. One interesting bit of fallout in human genetics here.
   Matt, I don the “geeky developmental biologist” slur from Wired. 🙂
6. Richard P. Grant says:

   22 April 2008 at 09:10

   Bloody Drosophila geneticists.
   I bet they were bullied at school, and this is their revenge.
   (Heather, care to summarize/précis the NYT article for those of us who refuse to register?)
7. Heather Etchevers says:

   23 April 2008 at 17:03

   Oh, yuk. You mean I had access to that because I had registered? I thought it was open access. An enticement. Stupid cookies. One more part of my life to clean up.
   Report in 2006 that the genome nomenclature committee of HUGO “is renaming some of the most objectionable names, in some cases by requiring that they be referred to by their initials, to render them inoffensive. The move was first reported by the journal Nature”.
   Basically, it’s amusing and memorable to give the genes these names when you’re working in basic research, but when you have to do genetic counseling for the human diseases due to alterations in the activity of that gene product, and it’s called “mothers against decapentaplegic”, you have to spend a lot of time if you’re consulting in e.g. Singapore, explaining about mothers against drunk driving and then that the gene is called thus because it’s a repressor of decapentaplegic, whose mutation leads to the loss of the 15 imaginal discs… it’s ever more nested and the poor patient (not to mention the doctor) already has enough on their plate.
   And if ever “headcase” leads to mental retardation, things will be even hairier. Then again, that’s the way it goes. I favor folklore.

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