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Oh
good morning
testing testing morning everybody
well um when I started this job at
Google I didn't know that I would have
the pleasure of doing what I get to do
today which is obvious to everyone in
this room but I'm going to do it
slightly indirectly I want to introduce
first um Bruce Stillman who is the
president of Cold Springs Harbor I
believe that's the title he joined as a
postdoc in 79 I'm thinking he'd stay
three years and has been there ever
since Bruce both as the president of
Cold Spring Harbor and research and also
there's a Cancer Institute there and as
you know we've been looking hard at
cancer and sort of some of the things we
could do there and I won't introduce
Bruce and then let Bruce introduce dr.
James D Watson
thank you we're here for two purposes
one is Jim is going to give a talk but
we're going to talk to people at Google
later because Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratory is one of the leading
genetics research centers in the country
in fact in the world and I think a lot
of the things that we do a Cold Spring
Harbor and what you do here can mesh
together it's a great pleasure to
introduce Jim as you know from the
picture behind me he here in Francis
Crick in 1953 discovered the double
helix structure of DNA at Jim was 23 at
the time and then had to figure out what
he was going to do for the rest of his
life which is a tough problem and quite
remarkably Jim has really topped
everything that he's done previously
he went from Cambridge in England where
he and Francis worked to Caltech and
then to Harvard at Harvard University he
wrote one of the the first textbook in
the new field of molecular biology which
revolutionized not only the field of
molecular biology but the way text books
were written and that textbook now in
its fifth edition is been really the
mainstay of the field of molecular
biology and I hope some of you actually
used at a college then he in in between
then he won the Nobel Prize with Francis
Crick and Morris Wilkins in 1962 in 1968
wrote the famous book which some of you
I see having with you today the double
helix was a New York Times best seller
book and really changed the way people
perceive science and scientists I think
then just a year after that Jim came
down to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
from Harvard Cold Spring Harbor
Laboratories on the North Shore of Long
Island about 30 miles from midtown
Manhattan and took over an institution
that was running out of steam we were
founded in 1890 and were the first
institution in the United States to do
genetics a gym really transformed Cold
Spring Harbor and became
became one of the leading scientific
administrators and leaders in the
country and has been a cold spring
harbor of a sense he was director from
68 to 1993 and then became president
until 2003 I succeeded him as director
and president in 2003 Jim is now our
Chancellor and he's still writing books
and his talk today which is something
that's very much on his mind is DNA and
the brain so it's a pleasure to
introduce Jim Watson
so I'm told I got 40 minutes and so I'll
try and rush through several things I
was told people wanted to hear about DNA
in the brain but I also know that
wherever I go people always asking me
you know how did we find the structure
of DNA so I'll spend about 10 minutes
just talking about those days together
with sort of some rules why I think it
was Francis Crick and I found the the
double helix we so this shows me my
first ambition as a young scientist I
wanted to be an ornithologist so it was
a keen bird watcher and my father was
one this chose me when I was 18 at the
University of Michigan Biological
Station that taking a course in the
advanced ornithology by then I suspect
that I was going to give upward watching
because I had that the previous winter
read the book what is life by the famed
Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger and
shorten our said he essence of life was
information and said well it had to be
stable information and so it must be an
ax molecule can be a gas it was a
molecule and this molecule must have
unique properties such that the
information could be exactly copied and
I have been sort of raised on Darwin but
I never really you know thought of
genetics and molecules then that's sort
of solid way and so I that follow i
instead of applying the Cornell to be an
ornithologist applied the Caltech to
genetics they turned me down and
fortunately I had applied the Indiana
which I was told was second-best it was
actually better than Cal pictus it had
basketball and so the main message I got
out of my three years in Indiana was
that go on the study DNA and but they
didn't teach him what you know about DNA
at the time because the actually the
covalent structure DNA wasn't worked out
when I was in graduate school it was
only completed in 1951 in Cambridge
England so I went off to Europe to
supposedly in Copenhagen the lab which
was going to try and make DNA in the
test tube
they weren't they were making nucleus
size which is a big difference and so I
was totally bored and didn't do any of
it
oh but my life was changed by going to a
meeting in the spring of 1951 in Naples
where I saw this x-ray photograph of DNA
and it was the talk was given by a young
or 30 year old 35 year old English
physicist Morris Wilkins who said it was
christened so that meant DNA had a
three-dimensional structure and despite
that you know all DNA molecules probably
being different because they were
carrying different pieces of information
they could still fold up into a common
structure and Wilkins didn't seem to
show any interest in me and so luckily
my PhD supervisor at Indiana or Gloria
arranged for me to go to Cambridge
University and there are virtually my
first day I met Francis Crick who was
then working on proteins and I was in a
lab whose objective was to find the
three-dimensional structure of proteins
and they were working on him
my globulin iris was to join in my
global group but if I met Francis and at
that time all the talk in Cambridge was
on the alpha helix of our way power
peptides folded up had been proposal by
Linus Pauling about six months before
and Max Perutz at Cambridge actually
proved the alpha helix was right he
tilted they a synthetic peptide got the
1.5 Eckstrom repeat of the alpha helix
so Cambridge was up both the excited
that they proved poem but humiliated
because they had proposed models before
and had not made the peptide bond planar
and just made everything fourfold and
they were very embarrassed
oh so I mean they sort of you know a
question I ask Francis well if Pauling
had solved the structure of the
polypeptide chain by just building
models using sort of chemical principles
could you do the same thing to DNA did
you really have to you know solve it
rigorously or could you sort of guess in
using clues such as the repeat along a
fiber axis was 3.4 angstroms or
something like that that this was there
enough information now by the time I
arrived the covalent structure was
worked out it was a regular 3 5
phosphodiester structure we made a go at
it
Wilkins had toes he thought there were
three chains and we didn't know how to
pack the chains together I was trying to
use divalent ions it was pretty awful
and then it sort of turned out that DNA
was supposedly to be worked on in London
and proteins in Cambridge so we were
told not to do any more model building
because Crick had a loud voice and he
sort of offended sir Lawrence Bragg
and break so ambition was to get quick
out of the place by getting you a PhD
and then he wouldn't have to hear
Francis's very loud voice but at that
time we thought well if DNA is a gene
it's actually more important than
protein and linus pauling will try and
talk the structure so we told the
previous who'd heard about the x-ray
photograph said could he have a copy and
who consent incentive one didn't want to
send him one but then a year later we
heard that Linus had a three-dimensional
model of the DNA and so I was very
worried and we thought well maybe you
know could he really solve it without
seeing any data and the answer was he
could have what he didn't there was a
this is me and about a year after I
arrived in Cambridge chef I expect
you're letting my hair grow long oh
because I arrived as an American with a
crew cut those things short harem well
deal quick said I look like you know
that we confused as American Air Force
and so you know and I arrived without
tie or anything like that by that time I
was trying to look like an Englishman I
only partially succeeded at that time
both my dentist in the tutor downstairs
from he said I asked me whether you know
he thought I was Irish and which
afterwards I realize this you know maybe
a little better than an Englishman and
but anyways Pauling came up and proposed
the three trained structure it was just
it was wrong because he held together
the three chains by hydrogen bonds he
used hydrogen's linking phosphate groups
well that you can only do if you're down
low pH one and cells are seventh so the
structure was preposterous
and we rushed over the chemical
laboratory said hey Pauling had made a
mistake and up so then the people in
Cambridge let us go ahead you know it
wasn't a two person we couldn't be
gentlemen you know polling wasn't not
working out because London was working
on it and so I took the polling paper in
the London and saw rosalind Franklin and
my book tells the whole story I will say
with Raymond Gosling in her lab had
taken an extraordinary picture which was
said of helix and Rosslyn was very
intelligent and never really had looked
at the picture before she wanted to
solve the crystalline structure and this
was super crystal so within a month we
had the structure on 28th of February of
53 and so I'll give you a couple of
reasons you know why we became pears why
we found that not that the first is we
work on something before its time had
come that is except for Pauling and
except for the people in London Francis
and I were the only people trying to do
the three-dimensional structure of data
and part that was because because the
two-dimensional just been worked out but
people thought you know it's going to be
complicated and they would work on
simpler things now the second is we
actually thought we can get an answer
soon maybe the next day so you shouldn't
sort of you know work on a problem when
you think it'll take you 10 years to get
the answer
particularly when you're young because
it takes you ten years you'll be out of
your job long before then if you don't
get the answer so I think a good role is
think you can do something in three
years okay you know people sort of trust
you for put up with you for three years
and so it actually took us only eighteen
months and we thought we can do it by
building models and that didn't require
solving the phase problem or any of the
things which was didn't be deviling
x-ray crystallography so we had a way to
do it the third thing was that you
should talk to your competitors instead
of viewing them as enemies I have them
as friends so you tell them what you
think and they tell you what you think
and that happens and you can do that
until you get very close to the answer
okay now rosalind Franklin had met
Francis and disliked him and didn't want
to talk to now she didn't you know who
says the story she was a
crystallographer she actually didn't
know much crystallography he needed help
she didn't know anything about space
groups and there was a space group which
would have told her if she analyzed that
that there two chains one going up on
top so she didn't really want to do it
herself okay so it really pays it's a
particularly win here everyone else
thinks you're crazy they have one person
who thinks you're saying so I had
Francis and he had me
so maybe you should do something you
know far out if everyone thinks you're
crazy because it's a little reassurance
as possible I mean you know it is
helpful and the last thing which was
important and never be the brightest
person in any room you're at you know
pretty leave it's this big because if
you're the brightest person you know in
a place no one can help you
so now turned out neither quick where I
do any chemistry and we were trying to
do chemistry so in a crucial poem point
I was getting nowhere and someone said
Jerry Donahue was out of Caltech he said
you got the hydrogen atoms in guanine
and timing in the wrong place now I just
copied them out of the textbooks and
assumed that the textbook trigger was
right but it wasn't so Donna you hadn't
been a quantum chemist we wondered that
also where Frances wasn't the best
crystallography Cambridge was then
probably the best University of the
world so there that's sort of the reason
you go to a good university you know
other people can help you so now I could
have been solved in Kings they've just
had to talk to each other so I think
those sort of reasons you know have an
important problem know how to get their
work is in a pair if you can and seek a
lot of help don't be afraid you don't
know anything just find the person who
does then you don't have to I thought I
was going to actually have to learn math
yeah I taken care of that but it turned
out that as long as I was in a room with
Francis I didn't have to know any math
because he knew so the important thing
is to get the answer not really have it
all in your own brain so go for the
answer not for how you get there main
things to get there but too many people
are concerned with oh you know their
pride and all that it was very useful
for me never to have been brought up
thinking I was bright because I you know
it's very easy to ask for help and if
you're going to need help ask for quick
you know don't wait a wait you don't
know something quick find someone who
does okay that was the sort of went out
of a when we knew what it was a big
thing we put in this little sentence
that is not escaped our notice no it was
a little letter to you know to nature
and of course not the interesting you
may see was surprising
no one asked us to give a talk in
Cambridge we never gave a public talk on
a double hit no seminar and so the first
public talk was given across the
Atlantic when at a median cost went her
way and for five years you know except
for one case there was just no one wrote
articles about how the public arrow
articles now important DNA was and it
really took the great experiment at
Caltech by meselson and stahl which
showed the strands separated and then
work out of kornberg's lab at Stanford
here which showed the strands ran in
opposite directions not crystallographic
but a mother way so in five years after
the double helix then it was accepted
but you know about 20 people got
interested and that was sufficient to
keep the next five years ago yes sir
when it was obvious you wanted to find
out how the genes the DNA sequence
determined the sequence amino acids and
proteins okay so that's the the story
and I worded up in the double helix and
there was fun writing because it was
good story and I tried to write it like
it was a novel and I wanted it to be as
good as The Great Gatsby so you know
I've been a voracious reader when I was
a child and you know was still within
Cambridge so you know I was really
didn't know people but I knew people
through books and so then they finally
did make a movie or a docudrama and I
was played by Jeff Goldblum which I
first thought was a bad choice I would
have preferred John McEnroe but hey we
got go boom but he was our saga knows
everyone and I probably was at that time
it did catch source of the arrogance of
it but Francis Crick wasn't played well
though so now they're going to make
movies or Bob rosalind Franklin I'm
going to be development and so someone
has suggested that's an order so that
and I can't always forget his name but
it's something like Ashton Kushner
that he could play and then despite my
being the villain you know I'd come out
alright but but you know Roslin
tragically got ovarian cancer even
before we got the Nobel Prize and died a
very sir was very sad she became close
to Francis Crick afterwards liked him I
think she was a high intelligent autism
sure her awkwardness was people I think
with yeah she liked mathematics and
really just couldn't face people very
easily she misread their social clues
and I think there was it was you know
it's the time one thought when she came
from a wealthy family we didn't know
that you were just a snob I don't think
she was snob she just probably didn't
see faces very well I'll come back to
the earth no I want to go on then the
next that go fast on DNA in the brain so
I think this century will see the coming
together of psychology and biology in
the way that the last century was the
coming together chemistry and biology so
our main object of attention is going to
be humans enough replies not mice but
humans it'll all be possible because we
can read the DNA messages in our
chromosomes so the tool for
understanding humans will be DNA and so
as a precursor to that was the big human
genome project which was finished three
years ago and since doing that they've
done the chimp to Mouse a whole related
trying to get enough information
comparative information we get to see
really where the essential parts of the
DNA molecules are and
so it's sort of you know it's our
instruction books and for a hundred
years or more
there's question of nature versus
nurture you know to what extent are we
determined by our genes and what extent
are you determined by your environment
and there's generally a crucial stage in
people's lives when they give up nurture
and think it's nature and that's when
their second child is born and they see
the second track is completely different
from the first thing and you know they
have to ask why but it's about this
stage and you know I'm pretty long past
that so I'm a nature guy and nurture is
important but it's hard to quantitate it
whereas you can actually quantitate DNA
in some sense
so we'll study what we can study knowing
that it's not the complete answer and
when you have monozygotic twins
sometimes the MA I guess the Gothic
twins are very similar and sometimes one
will have full-blown schizophrenia and
the other walk and you have to ask yeah
why so there's something besides just
the the genes but I guess my answer is
let's start with genes now that we have
so until now these you couldn't do will
you know were you you know right because
you had a good teacher because you had
good genes now you can probably answer
and the answer is probably more your
genes and your teachers and so well know
ah in order to study cancer it comes
from however we work out a technique
which is called Roma it's basically
taking
tiny representations little all of the
little bits of DNA and we're now up to a
chip which has 380,000 representations
today so you're sampling our genome with
three thousand eighty spots and we're
looking for cases where part of the gene
is present or is president two copies so
probably most you'll say well you just
change the letter for me to chi or G to
see but there are a lot of small
rearrangements when DNA is copied Lots
and with mistakes come in by which a
gene is goes from one to two copies or
it's just completely deleted now these
are things that are easier to detect
them the base single base changes so
this will be the technique which we'll
use for the next five years in about
five years from now it will be possible
probably the sequence everyone's DNA a
reasonable cost or ten so right now this
is we're just in a hurry
so we're using an imperfect thing and
it's been very effectively used in
studying breast cancer and now we're
looking at it in autism now autism in
the most extreme form is people have
essentially no social interaction
they just don't react to other people
they have low IQ they often have very
repetitive stereotyped behavior as they
can't sleep well and it's a terrible
burden on any family which has an
autistic child and the it was generally
believed that the number was about
100,000 but if you sort of wrong the
definition to say you're not you know
you can't some autistic don't speak but
you can speak and your social
interactions are are bad
then it can go up to about 100 so to
awkward kids and most awkward kids are
boys boys are more awkward than girls
why we don't know you know it could be
because we only have one X chromosome or
we have a Y chromosome okay all right so
there's this now girls do get autism and
I think rosalind Franklin was of this
type of high intelligent but really she
didn't see faces now you can sort of do
brain scans and have them exposed to
faces you know autistic people really
don't see faces very much that part of
the brain doesn't light up so it's a
real defect it's not you know they see
the face they probably don't even see it
or they don't see it to the ease okay
now here then I'll just go through this
very fast these copy number of
polymorphisms always carry about ten of
them and and just you know for people
who count one of these scans costs about
a thousand dollars if you don't go into
affected direct costs we're trying to
lower probably a year from now we'll get
the cost down but we've been limited by
money and the only way we were able to
do it is that a mathematician who has
been very successful
investing other people's money has an
autistic daughter if he's given us about
ten million dollars to do this study
okay so you can do that and we're trying
to look at author and you can look at it
in two ways you can look at families
where you have more than one autistic
child okay so you have two and in other
cases you can and where you think that
the parents probably are carrying some
genes which predispose the children
brought ISM you can also do it when two
seemingly absolutely normal people have
an autistic child okay and in rare cases
you can see chromosomal defects and
here's just a map and you can see that
particularly on chromosome 15 there are
duplications of DNA which frequently
lead to autism and these are the two
methods we sort of doing and so we can
begin to really see these changes in a
sort of unambiguous way and this was an
interesting case where we saw a change
on 15 and I say that and then we have
read that someone else had found a
change on 15 we thought we've confirmed
him but then turned out that we have
used the same DNA as he so it wasn't any
confirmation right now they're big
samples of DNA from children with autism
and particularly from families where
there's more than one child and here you
can just sort of see there's a deletion
that's something occurring on grosso 20
and I just
I'll go fast here anyways it's a gene
which is expressed in the central
nervous system so you can see you could
have got one case well how do you know
it's the cause heart but the answer is
in mostly when you get into lead if you
just think the average person he is not
got a deletion or a change which isn't
president in the parent so if you see
something appearing maybe it's two
daughters and what you'd like to do is
find a large number just repeat and
here's another one this is a protein
again expressed in parts of the the
brain and this one and I should have
autism the children are generally highly
mentally retarded or they the classical
autism was okay and just sort of a
summary and then I'll go to familiar
autism and this is rather creepy okay
it's creepy in the following sense that
fifty years ago there was a psychiatrist
at the University of Chicago brutal Bela
Hyman who studied autistic children and
he said the cause of autism was that the
mothers were emotionally cold and didn't
give the warmth and so the children the
cause of autism was just bad behavior by
the mothers and this was accepted and so
women with autistic children bore the
burden not only of a child they couldn't
return their affection but they were the
cause of it now that wasn't given up
about 20 years ago and then it was sort
of generally believed that the the
parents behavior had nothing to do with
it now there's a psychologist at
Cambridge University Simon baron-cohen
who some of you may have heard he writes
out the male mind in the female mind a
politically incorrect statement but that
the male mind which is found in
many women is people who like to
systematize who like mathematics whereas
the female mind is people who like
social interactions are empathizing with
other people caring people
so systematizing and caring people and
there are many more males who are
systematize errs than than women are
systematizes okay so he identifies these
things by giving you a self-assessment
test you answers 20 questions about
yourself and then you could be put into
these two categories and it's it's more
accurate than you would think okay now
it turns out that when he looks at the
the parents of autistic children that
the mother's I are more systematizes
than on the average and the fathers are
so that he'll and then okay so the sort
of nasty conclusion from this is that
too much mathematical ability is bad for
your children
so if you're really bright in math you
know a man marry for you no beauty not
friends okay so you know they I know
everyone laughs but when you get down to
it it's nasty okay because uh you know
they're sort of rumors you know the more
autistic children are born to MIT
graduates there's more autism here in
Silicon Valley okay probably true okay
now how does the male mind rah arise
Simon baron-cohen has pretty good data
that is the fetal testosterone that if
you get too much tie a certain high
level testosterone in sort of the third
month of development that leads to the
male mind and he hasn't shown that that
leads to autism but he's been following
he takes amniotic fluid and then he
follows the women afterwards and sees
that those which had high testosterone
and then when he does see the
measurements that basically it leads to
the male mind okay so really what we're
trying to do it and I will stop in a few
minutes is that autism because the brain
is so complicated what we've shown is
due to a lot of changes in a lot of
different sheets not just one but
there's something strange which we
haven't yet found that why it's in males
more than females and really what is it
this transmitted from you know
the parents what genes really predispose
you to that so knowing your friends with
autistic children where the women are
really highly intelligent I think it
would ask them well would they have you
know taking a test to not have such a
child they'd probably say yes so I think
it's a you know a that autism maybe to
intellectuals what HIV was to the
homosexual community something which who
really pays to take a big interest in
and get the answers as fast as possible
and hopefully decrease the incidence of
autism now on the you know good side if
you can identify sort of high
intelligent autistic children early on
and give them special schooling you can
help them and many go to college and you
know they're probably some in this room
so many can become functional with in
many cases it's a very hard burden to
bearable particularly for the people who
have it is is not so sorry to conclude
autism is just one of many other things
we're now trying to you know be serious
and understanding schizophrenia and a
whole variety of things so I think we'll
begin to really understand sort of
mental differences between people and
personality differences and we'll begin
to understand it I think what we will
end up by doing that is
we'll probably be a better world and the
sunset we'll understand when people sort
of another part of the room and don't
want to socialize that maybe they don't
have any choice
and so will be much more tonight two
people who seem to be awkward realizing
that they were born awkward it wasn't
just it you know they didn't want to be
with their bigger brother or a little
sister or something like that that that
they didn't really have the choice and
that the brains weren't working properly
and that they need help so I think 50
years from now
I'm sure by then we'll sort of
completely understood autism those of us
who work with it you know using this
framework younger people you better do
something in three years so we're sort
of operating on a three-year role you
know we got to accomplish an awful lot
fast and I think we will so the Human
Genome Project which you know was people
first started that there was lots of
opposition I think look last thing is
that that sort of you know at the time I
was a young teacher and so out of when
political correctness came in it was
sort of everyone sort of thought it
would be nice to believe that all humans
weren't that different from each other
as we could only change the environment
that is to nurture everything would be
we could do away with a lot of the
inequality of the world now we're
witnessing particularly is now we're
placing greater sort of intellectual
demands on people a widening of it
all day despite all our you know in
terms of wages and some of this probably
has some genetic component something
which you know you're supposed to not to
say but I suspect it's true and
therefore you know I think the to have a
society which is satisfactory those of
us in this room somehow have to see that
the people who aren't in this room don't
belong to a totally different world so
we really have to maybe accept the fact
that all humans really have a quite
different potentials and those with
potentials which don't allow them to be
in this room nonetheless have to be part
of our society and if we'll take
probably some real you know positive
effort on our part to keep this divide
between those who have and those who
have not getting greater in society so
thank you
yeah
so I'm pleased to say we have about 10
or 15 minutes to take questions so if
people could ask questions by signing up
and going to the mics that would be
great
go ahead ah my ears aren't working
perfectly this morning I'm going to ask
you if you would please to pronounce
again the name of the psychologist who
has the theory of the male mind and
female mind Simon baron-cohen who's his
eye on Baron Van Horne it's a hyphenated
name he's in Cambridge England he had an
op-ed piece in The New York Times last
September when you know in reference to
Larry Summers not well-received remarks
at Harvard thank you very much I
actually have a few questions so one is
a since we're venturing into the realm
of political and correctness all the
autistic people that I've ever heard of
were white I was wondering if but of
course that doesn't mean anything that's
purely anecdotal I was wondering if you
know anything about the original
incidents it
I think there's problem
the sort of no I don't wanna make any
prediction because a given family and
that's part of the plays you can have
two children that's its same parents and
one will be sort of high intelligent
autism and the other will be low
intelligent autism so that's the very
same family so that's the only fact I
can give you the other fact is that
sometimes high intelligent autism is
very hard to distinguish from sort of
sort of juvenile schizophrenia but it
doesn't progress into the delusional
form but people with the Asperger's
syndrome have an impaired slightly
impaired IQ and difficulties in working
memory
my next question actually is sort of it
so happens falls on from that I when I
read a beautiful mind the biography of
John Nash it seemed I felt strongly that
even before he went into schizophrenia
when he was a young man it seemed like
to me like he was autistic I was
wondering if you were familiar with his
biography what you have to say about
that
I met John Nash a couple years ago at
Quarry Harbor he was a very nice man you
know he has a schizophrenic some early
on I think it's very hard to distinguish
sort of this autism from schizophrenia
I mean the psychiatrist's had problems
uh my third question okay the last week
alright okay so I have to pick
okay so my third question was I had read
that craig Venter decided to leave the
public Human Genome Project and start
his private company because of a because
you had dismissed his his whole genome
shotgun sequencing idea and I was
wondering how would you would
characterize the interaction I think
that's slightly a misstatement of what
happened there he done shotgunning a
bacteria was successful the human people
who are running the public program
didn't think shotgun could then handle
the repetitive sequences DNA and wanted
to go fire using clones of defined
location a Venter took a big gamble and
partially won
I think those were so connect to the
public program think we proceeded in the
right way that is a really high
resolution error
since then the you know the computing
power is increased enormously you can do
things that you couldn't do yeah back
five or six years ago so you can now
shotgun a human you wobbly won't put
perfectly together just by shot coming
right now everything we're going to do
is we sequence oh you have one which you
know to very high accuracy and you can
pair everything to this one that's where
we are now
thank you yes so I don't think there's a
nerd in this room that doesn't think
this is cool in some way or another the
the question is what can we do for you
it was mentioned that we might be able
to help you out could you elaborate a
little more on that please well we'll
later what is needed is a
your way in a simple way you know if you
Google DNA and you wanted to look at the
DNA sequences of one given gene and a
million people you know that's sort of
what we want to do and then you want
people to have analyzed as having the
Spotted that you know sequences from
Australia Ireland you don't sort so
there's going to be just an enormous
database necessary to contain all this
DNA and right now there are people are
dealing with this sort of perfect human
genome sequence and analyzing it and
that's what our database is because of
privacy and a lot of issues no one is
yet sort of said we'll go for the big
database but once we begin to do all
this resequencing and the costs go down
then there'll be the big database and I
think we want to get it started soon
because already there's data and you
don't know how to get it thank you sir
okay hi um I was just noticing I first
of all I'm a great fan I read the double
helix when I was knee-high to whatever
and but as I was as you were talking I
noticed the sort of a tendency you have
to sort of put things up along a single
axis it's in other words people how
bright are they what is their exact IQ
is it a male mind or is it a female mind
but to me it seems as if the lesson of
DNA is that this whatever it is it's
enormous ly complex and
multi-dimensional and to collapse it
onto these single things I'm just not
sure how meaningful oh yeah it may be
very meaningful if you're trying to
figure out why your child is autistic
that's all it's a way of you know
everything is very complex but
you could you know do these tests and on
the whole there's a difference between
lay men and women answer that some women
answer exactly the same way men do and
so it's it's a very it's a very
overlapping but it's useful in trying to
possibly there was a sample we just had
a meeting on genetics autism the average
IQ of the parents of autistic children
in Seattle is 112 that being something
okay that's all I'm trying to say and so
we're trying to come to grips with and
certainly fetal testosterone which is
you know levels vary in between males
and females well those are the boys and
girls does seem to affect whether you're
going to have this empathetic mind or
the systematizing knowing that it's a
great oversimplification but you know
you know my wife just goes toward babies
I go away from them okay I mean very
young babies you know what but I love
infants and I'm also mathematical yes
there are some people who are good in
both there's some of us who are just
awkward babies but I just wanted to add
one thing which is that I know that you
tend to say oh and then there's these
politically correct people it's not just
political correctness I think that there
are arguments that those of us who are
pretty much on the other side of the
ideological divide do make and that
they're credible oh yeah what they I
think you know the Larry Summers
statement was probably correct and his
big mistake was apologize oh no not at
all oh no okay
but but I think enough said yeah I don't
want to take up too many no no no but
you know pathetic person yeah no no no I
think you would you know what we don't
know if you would do these tests that
the people who are very you know good at
mathematics highly empathetic whether if
you father and a mother with both those
qualities whether they have is higher
probability of having an autistic child
is if both parents are sort of missing
in empathy I think that's really the
question we're trying to ask okay I
understand and I think it's very
important that we answer it because it's
a bit creepy now if you're you know MIT
doesn't want to study this hero
saina has tried to get them to you know
have a formal study and we had a that
are meeting someone who's MIT graduate
married to an MIT graduate and you know
they seemingly have normal children but
he would just like that studied up
that's all as to whether the yeah I
think it's worse really getting data
here in Silicon Valley whether the
incidence of autism is higher hay
because it's the definition can be broad
it's not a simple thing to answer but
knowing parents of autistic children
it's a very important thing to answer
yes thank you very much yes as a female
who has Asperger's syndrome and has the
male mind of the size Baron Cohen
I also have an Asperger son so this was
exceptionally interesting to me I'm
wondering if I know that people with
severely autistic children are very
concerned about their children
and it's important to study that I'm
wondering if there is any look at this
as more of a natural variation among
human brains and if the new technologies
which allow us to interact with each
other in more technological ways without
the facial body language and things like
that are developing to me they seem to
be very helpful for those with
Asperger's and other high-functioning
autism I'm wondering if you're looking
at that as ways to help Asperger
children to function better with others
in society and if there are any
advantage that advantages that you've
seen for those with that particular
variation I think you would be better
off hi there it is half that you know if
this was behind the Rosalind Franklin's
inability really to become you know
close to either men or women then I
don't see any advantage she got out of
it but you know major suspicious and
unable to interact with her colleagues
in a way you know she had that picture
she should have got the structure we
didn't steal it from her she just didn't
use what she had so I I think the
tragedy you know was that she didn't
have this inability to interact with
people and I think that her true in the
world that we're in today were computers
you seem to interact with computers
through computers then that's clearly
better for someone who doesn't have to
look at the face but I have a son who
finds it difficult to look at faces so
you know it is not
it's not right that you know when you
see it close up have nice see it very
close up it's very tragic it can be
three more questions
I appreciate that there there may be a
strong genetic component to autism but
it's also the case that you can get
autism by taking certain chemicals and
certain points of gestation and the
incidence of autism seems to be rising
rather dramatically that would seem to
suggest that there's lots going on
besides genetics it's not increasing
very rapidly the definition of autism is
changing and special schools are coming
into existence which to be admitted to
you have to be declared autism autistic
and so parents are wanting to have their
child declared autistic so they can put
them in the schools we had to talk about
this and as far back in 1978 if they use
the wider definition of autism it was
coming close to one in a hundred and
fifty that's way back then so I think
it's more ascertain now the math as a
marriage pattern is changing intelligent
women are much more likely to marry
intelligent men than they were in the
past because they're in the same schools
with them and they socially they're
mixing so to that to the extent that
that would increase the probability of
autistic children we may be seeing that
but whether you know that could double
the total
autistic burden no one knows yet we
really have to find the genes that's
what we're you know that's what we're
trying to do yes hi dr. Watson Watson
thank you for being here as a mother of
a cha
child with a DD and PIM all epileptic
seizures which she has thankfully
outgrown in in my studies and learnings
about her that seems to be on the Tree
of Life kind of on the same branch as
autism autism kind of branches off as
the diagram that I was reviewing about a
third of autistic children have
epileptic events so so they are
connected but not necessarily a
epileptic children are no yes epileptic
sure many epileptic children have not a
trace of autism but what you know behind
some cases of autism are defects in the
nervous system which also manifests
itself as epilepsy thank you very much
dr. Watson thank you for sharing your
thoughts today you said you were excited
about studying nature because nurture
seems so difficult to quantify and while
the tools of molecular biology are
wonderful it seems most of the questions
here have suggested that measuring human
phenotype is the real frontier and here
in this place full of databases of human
behavior and its phenotype I'm wondering
what you know whether you think that you
know refining or understanding with new
tools for the description of childhood
behavior and and the effects of
debilitating illness during childhood
and congenital environment and how that
shows up in phenotype is the real
frontier and that the tools for
molecular biology are sort of ahead of
our description of behavior I think it's
just this decade is the is the decade
when we suddenly have the tools to do
this so we might as well just do it and
then after we you know melt nature for
as much as we can then back to nurture
it is the doing correlating with poorly
defined phenotypic characteristics or is
the doing the the refinement of the dis
of the phenotype no we have to refine
the phenotype
but the phenotype is certainly and
the psychotic diseases you know can vary
over the course of a lifetime they can
go for one behavior to another soak our
sort of feeling is if we the genes are
set sort of salt so we want to find the
genes and then once we know that then
begin to see how environmental
influences go and it's going to be the
real complexity to it is that there's
just an enormous amount of human
variation and the same particular mutant
gene and one person will bring about a
different effect than it does in another
person so a parent can you know have a
gene and have some phenotype the child
can have that because others of his
genes are different and they're all
interacting that it's very complicated
so you can either just hate it so
complicated to give them do something
else or you know you just say autism
it's an awful thing and we're going to
find out what causes it I think that's
just our attitude and ten years ago we
couldn't have done anything now we can
so we should do it and you know it you
know it may put to rest that people
believe you know that it's vaccines or
you know the other potential causes of
autism but is it
that is it you know this is artists it's
awful to say autism is the disease of
the end of the male mind you know I mean
that's I'm paraphrasing Simon
baron-cohen but I think he's right one
last question my question has a slightly
different focus and I was wondering how
you think the recent advances in
computational biology buying from
addicts and proteomics is going to
change the future in genetics research
and specifically the focus of molecular
evolution of certain important proteins
and genes well I think you you know
can't handle all the data without these
computational tools yeah you're probably
in a few years we go to the genetics
department half the people are going to
be geneticists and half molecular
biology every half will leave molecular
biologists half will be you know
mathematically trained so you just can't
look at the data and get out the data
you want without mathematics and I cook
free however we want to you know have a
little Department of applied math
because we you know our people need help
do you can look at the two fields will
come together or do you think you will
continue to have bench scientists and
computational scientists on either side
working together I bet a given person is
good for the other for the most part and
there we a few people who straddle books
but the those are just the increasingly
complicated and we hard you know to to
master both you know better have the
computational person next year in the
sense that I Francis Crick next to me
you know it it went faster so you don't
want to you know think you got to do all
these things and have a
ten-year PhD program you know I think
where you want to get people out really
doing real science in the early 20s not
yeah thank you
so I want to thank everyone for coming I
have to say the talk was more germane to
me than I expected being the uncle of a
son a nephew with Asperger syndrome for
those of you who got the book and you
know who you are if you'd like to get
the book signed dr. Watson is very
kindly agreed to sign the books back in
that area over there and one more I
think round of applause and then thank
you
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