Insulin Heroine - Dorothy Hodgkin

When I opened my Chrome browser this morning, I was surprised to see a dot molecular structure (invented by GN Lewis, whom CNR Rao described as the greatest chemist of the 20^th century). 

Clicking Google’s logo, I found that May 12 was the birth anniversary of Dorothy Hodgkin, “who discovered the molecular structure of insulin.” Wait a minute, I thought, Fred Sanger discovered the structure of insulin – I wrote a memoriam blog about him, when he passed away last year. “She was awarded the Nobel prize for discovering the structure of Vitamin B-12,” Wikipedia continued. Wow, not quite GN Lewis, not Haber or Bosch or Parsons or Mahavira or Lynn Margulis, but an accomplished woman scientist: and I had never heard of her. Live and learn, I thought.

How is her contribution different from Sanger’s, I wondered. This essay on Wellcome’swebsite explained : Sanger discovered the amino-acid sequence of insulin, Hodgkin the molecular structure. I urge you to read the article – the early experiments on dogs and insulin is an eye opener.

Well done, Google. Weller done, Dorothy. And thanks, on behalf of my father, who lived several decades longer, because of your discoveries.

Sid Caesar's ghost

Sid Caesar, one of the world's greatest comedians passed away this week. He was the Bhishma of American television, its first great superstar comedian, starring in a show called "Your Show of Shows." See this one for a view of his talent - it features him as an bored audience member at a super-snob classical music recital.

Most Indians have never heard of him, and perhaps most Americans don't know who he was. More the pity.

Caesar assembled what was perhaps the greatest comedy writing team in history: not just American television history. They included:

Woody Allen, now a Hollywood movie director
Mel Brooks, film maker of terrific spoofs, and very funny actor
Neil Simon, Broadway playwright par excellence
Larry Gelbart, writer of MASH, one of the most successful TV sitcoms of all time
Carl Reiner, writer and actor of the Dick van Dyke show, the first great American sitcom
Mel Tonkin, the head-writer of this incredibly accomplished crew.

Sid Caesar's Writers

It is no co-incidence that MASH and Dick van Dyke were two of the wittiest television shows of all time (Frasier is perhaps the third), as epigrammatic as Oscar Wilde in their best moments, as physically hysterical as Chaplin or Jackie Chan, as crazy as Bugs Bunny when zaniness peaked. With a cast of superb actors, whom you could not separate from their characters - which was true of Sid Caesar's sketches.

They came together for this remembrance, called Caesar's Writers, which I saw in 1996, when I was in Seattle. For a while, after seeing this, my dream was to become a sitcom writer - it seemed far more fun than and just as creative as any science I had dreamed of in school, or any robotics I fantasized about in graduate school. I even wrote a sample screenplay for Frasier, which I inflicted on friends. And started writing several screenplays for movies, none of which I have attempted to finish.

But it gives me great pleasure to watch Sid Caesar anytime on Youtube. Now, I see, more have been uploaded. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you the same pleasure - I hope you watch a few of Caesar's sketches on YouTube.

And Sid, it has been an honour and pleasure watching you, sir. Give my regards to Bob Hope and Ernest Lehmann and Chaplin and Billy Wilder and all the other greats. Wilde and Plum, too.

Fred Sanger - Insulin man

Fred Sanger, who first discovered the amino acid sequence of insulin, passed away yesterday. Insulin is now familiar to most of us, as the protein whose shortage causes the onset of diabetes in human beings. Proteins are the engines of the cell, made up of amino acids, which in turn are three-nucleotide sequences of the four basic building blocks of DNA - adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine, referred to as ACGT.

The sequencing  of a protein was as phenomenal an accomplishment as finding the structure of the DNA by Watson and Crick. The incredible patience which Sanger accomplished is told in books, but since it requires a good understanding of biology, I wont attempt it here. Everybody who has ever had diabetes or someone with diabetes, which was alleviated by insulin, must salute Fred Sanger for his phenomenal contribution to long life and better health of millions of humans.

May there be more Sangers in this world to make it a better place. My father, Rangarathnam, had diabetes and lived a long life because of people like Fred Sanger.

I salute you, sir.