monologic interaction between Master of Ceremonies and Nobel laureates
We must congratulate and dedicate this essay to the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar for winning the Nobel Prize Series of lectures for the State of Goa and to ensure that the students and the society at large benefits from the experiences of the five Nobel prize winning scientists.
To be a good scientist, one has to dream big, and have a vision; the individual has to be curious, fearless, patient, and develop creativity. To freely choose the right environment and be in it and also take up challenges, risks and overcoming road blocks by even changing the field of research, if one feels the need to stop the current on hands research project and take up a new emerging field to work on. To take calculated risks and challenges is also the trait of a good and successful scientist.
After nearly 40 years in the field of scientific research and teaching, I can assert that Goa has a low scientific temper; we do not have good scientific knowledge communicators. We have hardly any routine scientific coverage in print or in journalism and our citizenry is heavily bogged down by religious imperialism and faith seekers and healers, who undermine the contribution of science and even murder those intellectuals with liberal, rational and creative ideas and contributions. The festival on scientific ideology which came to be from 1st to 3rd February, 2018, did not catch Goa in a scientific storm.
The Nobel Series programme, Goa had Professor Tomas Lindahl, a molecular biologist from Sweden, who won the Nobel Prize for his work which brought to light that DNA acts as a template to duplicate itself. However this duplicate of DNA is not infallible and at time gets either damaged or miscodes while it generates its mirror image. Dr Tomas was able to isolate, identify and use the enzymes in the mechanism of DNA repair, understand the geneses of cancer and also understand the process of aging. The basic research of Professor Tomas does have far researching consequences and applications in the field of gene technology, wherein genetic deformities can be corrected through gene removal or replacement and splicing technology.
Instead of extensive printed advertisements on the programme alone, the Goa government could have produced printed literature on the work of Dr Tomas and circulated it to students, teachers and researchers, as his work is novel, basic yet simple and achievable in the laboratory. This would have catalysed the Goan youth towards understanding the marvels of molecular biology.
Then we had Prof Serge Harosche from Morocco, now settled in a research institution in Paris, whose fascinating research in the field of quantum physics revealed to the world for the first time that matter and light reacts actively in the sub atomic stages. Dr Harosche showed that light moves as packets of energy called “photons”. These photons were trapped by laser devices and studied further. The vast potentials of Dr Harosche work finds applications in the study of photosynthesis, production of biomass, ultimately leading to food security.
Goa can further benefit from the visiting scientist through inducing Goan students to understand the basics of quantum physics. Goa being a tropical coastal state, we could endeavour to promote the use of solar energy as an alternate energy resource to replace the polluting use of coal, which is today threatening to environmentally destroy and degrade Goa.
The third scientist from West Germany to visit Goa was Christine-Niisslem Volhard, whose path breaking research at Max Plank Institute for Entwichlungs Biology at Tubingen on the aspects of genetic control of early embryogenic development throws light on the salient aspects of how the genes are activated or even shut down by sequential “turning on” or “turning off” of the production of enzymes, leading to cell differentiate and embryogenic development.
The fourth scientist was Dr. Richard Roberts, an English Scientist who migrated to the USA and is presently working at the New England Laboratory in Massachusetts, USA. The work of Dr. Roberts is a Manual in Genetic Engineering. The bacterial DNA though is primitive, is the one which makes sense in its genome entirety and thus useful in it’s entirely form and structure. However human genome is not entirely readable. There are portions of DNA which makes sense and produce enzymes, proteins and other growth factors. These are called the Exons. However there are also parts of a DNA sequence which are seen as making “No Sense”. or any growth factor one needs.
It was a great festival of scientific ideas and temperament but essentially restricted to a segregated monologic interaction between the Master of Ceremonies from the Nobel Foundation and the Nobel laureates, which left guests, teachers, professors and the enlightened audiences as mere passive spectators. The Secretary of Biotechnology Dr K Vijay Raghavan would do well to ensure that “Moderators” conducting shows are essentially from India in general and Goa in particular as Goa was the centre of activity in this case, to optimize the benefits both to Goa and India and not get the theme centered around benefits to the host country get diluted, with moderators from Sweden knowing nothing of the host country and this visit of Nobel laureates not exploited by local scientist in full measures.
