Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

DNA, The Hieroglyphics of Life

DNA, The Hieroglyphics of Life #2

I really like this analogy. When we look at genome code it’s like reading from a telephone book where the names and numbers are a random assortment of incomprehensible characters.

We know that these characters are written in a language called Chemicalese. (I made that up.) This adds another layer of complexity to the problem. When DNA analysis is done in a criminal investigation, a sample of a person’s body is compared with a sample found at the crime scene. The result is two sets of chemical barcodes which if identical show the genetic material came from the same person. This is a very useful tool but in the grander scheme of things can only be described as remedial. For example an archeologist might examine two cave paintings and using a set of criteria conclude, they were painted by the same individual in the distant past. That says something but not much about why they were painted in the greater context of what they represent.

So what we have is not cave paintings but something more like the hieroglyphics (barcodes) left by the ancient Egyptians, which went for a long time undeciphered. However, hieroglyphics painted on the wall of a tomb used symbols in their context that gave clues to their meaning plus there was a beginning and an end. With DNA we don’t know where the blueprint begins or ends and the language is totally foreign to an intuitive grasp.

So how will it be deciphered it? I suspect the methodology will be to take a string and implant it in an egg. Then let the egg develop and see what it looks like. Say we get an arrangement that can be recognized. For example … say the result looks like an appendage or tissue from a recognized part of the body. Then the researcher goes step by step down the link trying to decipher exactly what each bit of information is saying. As the research continues and the process can be repeated with the same results and the string of code can be manipulated to make subtle changes that confirm our knowledge of what that small string of code is saying. This continues until there is a thorough understanding of how that string works in the replication process. When this is done for different bones, sensors and tissues we will ultimately have a better understanding of exactly the function a string of code is expected to perform and have our Rosetta Stone.

Step two will be to write a program that translates the DNA code into a language that can be readily understood. That will be a huge accomplishment.

The claim that we have “Mapped” the Human Genome is misleading. A map tells us where on the sheet of paper things are located. The genome mapping at present, while a major step forward, provides little that is in a useable form. We need that telephone book of symbols to be changed into something readable. Then broken down into chapters, paragraphs and sentences that explain exactly what is going on.

Many years ago I learned German by reading paragraph-by-paragraph and sentence-by-sentence the “Three Musketeers” in both languages. This is something similar to what I hope researchers are in the process of doing.