经济学人讣告||南非生物学家、分子生物学的奠基人之一西德尼·布伦纳

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导读

西德尼·布伦纳

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听力|精读|翻译|词组

Irrepressible

无法抑制的表达欲

英文部分选自经济学人Obituary版块

Sydney Brenner

西德尼·布伦纳

Irrepressible

无法抑制的表达欲

Sydney Brenner, molecular biologist and spirited conversationalist, died on April 5th, aged 92

分子生物学家和精力充沛的健谈者西德尼·布伦纳，于4月5日去世，享年92岁。

It was a book, rather than the natural world itself, that made Sydney Brenner want to be a scientist. He was so captivated by “The Science of Life”, by H.G. Wells, Julian Huxley and G.P. Wells, that rather than return it to the public library in Germiston, his South African birthplace, he paid a daunting two-shilling fine for losing it. Purloined in the 1930s, it was still with him in the 1990s.

西德尼·布伦纳想要成为一名科学家的原因与其说是来自于对大自然的痴迷，不如说是源自一本书。他被这本由H.G.韦尔斯、朱利安·赫胥黎和G.P.韦尔斯三人合著的《生命科学》迷得五迷三道，以至于宁愿咬牙交2先令罚款给他南非家乡的杰米斯顿市公共图书馆报失，也不愿将它还回去。“借到”这本书时是30年代，直到90年代他仍然将它带在身边。

A precocious boy—a student at the University of the Witwatersrand by the time he was 15—and bullied for it, reading was his connection to the wider world. Courses, he said, never taught him anything. The way to learn was to get a book that told you how to do things, and then to start doing them, whether it was making dyes or, later in life, programming computers. If he thought more deeply than the other great biologists of his age, which he did, it was surely because he read further, too.

布伦纳智力超群，15岁便就读于威特沃特斯兰德大学。因年纪小而遭受霸凌的他靠阅读了解更广阔的外部世界。他称自己在课堂上什么也没有学到，认为正确的学习方式应该是找一本教授方法的书，并动手实践。无论是制造染料，还是后来学编程，他都是这么一步步学会的。如果说他比同时代其他伟大生物学家思考得更深刻，而事实上也正是如此，那么这定是因为他比他们阅读得更深入。

Unsurprising, then, that he saw the life he studied as a thing that could be read—and that could read itself. In 1960, during a long conversation with two of the other giants of molecular biology, Francis Crick and François Jacob, he was the first person in the world—by about a second—to understand how cells read genes to make proteins. In the 1970s he suggested a way of turning all the genes needed to make up a human into a “Book of Man”—a precursor to the Human Genome Project that he would go on to champion. The most sustained project of his life was an attempt to learn how a tiny worm read itself into existence from nothing but an egg and a genome.

这么看来，布伦纳认为他所研究的生命是可阅读的，甚至是可自我阅读的，就不足为奇了。1960年在与另两位分子生物学界知名学者弗朗西斯·克里克和弗朗索瓦·雅各布长谈时，布伦纳以一秒之先成为了世界上第一位知晓细胞如何读取DNA中携带的遗传信息并指导产生蛋白质这一奥秘的人。70年代，他提出了将组成人类所需的所有基因编成一本“人类之书”的构想。此构想之后一步步发展成为了他一直拥护支持的“人类基因组计划”。布伦纳一生中从事时间最长的研究是试图揭示小小的蠕虫是如何通过读取自己的遗传基因进而仅仅依靠虫卵和基因组进行自我复制最终长成为蠕虫的。

Which is not to say that he was locked in silent study. Anything but. He was voluble, and mischievous. He joked, and harangued, and seemed rarely to let a thought go unexpressed. The years in which he shared an office with Crick in Cambridge were times of endless talk, of sense and nonsense; nothing, he would say, was too stupid to say. It was not a dictum to which he was true. He made plenty of people think that what they had said was indeed stupid. He mocked people; he wrote them off, too. But he believed it was true of himself, and of those he chose to respect.

但他绝非埋头研究的缄默者。相反，他很健谈，甚至有些调皮。他喜欢开玩笑，聊起来滔滔不绝，极少有保留想法、秘而不宣的情况。在剑桥的时候，他与克里克（Crick）共用一个办公室，那段日子里他们谈天说地，永无止境，有意义的、没意义的，啥都能聊起来。用他的话说就是，话无至蠢，皆能出口。话虽如此，事实却不一定如此。他让很多人觉得自己说的话愚不可及，他还嘲笑别人，将他们的想法贬的一文不值。但他坚信自己这么做是忠于自我，也是忠于那些自己所敬重的人。

注：

1.write off: to defeat an opponent easily

2.1956年，在克里克的帮助下，布伦纳来到了英国医学研究理事会（MRC）在剑桥的卡文迪许实验室，研究基因编码以及RNA如何进行信息传递工作。

He met Crick in 1953, when on a cold April day he and other young researchers from Oxford drove to Cambridge to see the model of the dna double-helix structure that Crick and James Watson had assembled at the Cavendish Laboratory. It was, he said, the watershed moment of his life. After spells in America and back in South Africa, he and Crick became room mates, friends and collaborators. They shared their fathers’ trade—both men had been shoemakers, though Harry Crick’s Northamptonshire version of the business had been more comfortable than that of Morris Brenner, an illiterate Lithuanian immigrant. They shared impressive eyebrows, too. Recalling a conversation with Brenner at the high table of Kings College, the historian Horace Freeland Judson noted that some of the hairs in them were a full three inches long.

他与克里克相识于1953年一个寒冷的四月天。那天他与其它几位年轻研究员一同驱车从牛津前往位于剑桥的卡文迪许实验室（the Cavendish Laboratory）参观由克里克和詹姆斯·沃森（James Watson）搭建的脱氧核糖核酸双螺旋结构模型。那次参观后来被他称为人生中的转折点。之后他去美国转了一圈，后来又重回南非，在母校金山大学执教了一段时间。重回剑桥后，他与克里克成为了室友、挚友并开始一起进行研究。两人的父亲甚至从事过同样的行业，都做过制鞋匠。当然哈里·克里克（克里克的父亲）在家乡北安普顿郡做生意肯定比莫里斯·布伦纳（布伦纳的父亲）这个目不识丁的立陶宛移民在南非做生意要容易得多。他们二人在外貌上也有相似之处，两人眉毛都十分引人注目。据历史学家霍勒斯·贾德森( Horace Freeland Judson)回忆他与布伦纳在伦敦大学国王学院贵宾席上交谈时的场景，发现他（布伦纳）有几根眉毛甚至足足有三英寸长（7.62cm）。

注：

1.Northamptonshire是一英格兰一个比较传统的小镇。人们的生活节奏较慢，生活压力小。此处指生意比较好做。

2.watershed moment：分水岭，转折点

3.high table：贵宾席，a table for the use of fellows (members of the Senior Common Room) and their guests at Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin and Durham colleges. Other academic institutions (such as University of London; University of St Andrews）also have high tables. The table is normally at the end of the dining hall on a raised platform, although this is not always the case. On more formal evening occasions, dinner jackets are worn. It is also normal to wear academic gowns.

选自维基百度

More to the point, Brenner and Crick developed a shared way of looking at the problem they faced: how dna told cells to make proteins. Brenner had read papers by the mathematician John von Neumann from which he had taken the lesson that what was necessary for reproduction was a structure that contained within itself an account of how it could be made—the account, the finished structure and the means of its making being logically distinct. Though he did not articulate the ideas straight away, they were to inform both men’s thinking about the genetic code that is written in dna and how it is read first by being transcribed into “messenger rna” and then translated through “adaptors” into protein.

更重要的是，布伦纳和克里克形成了统一的研究方法来面对这一难题：DNA是如何指导细胞生产蛋白质的。布伦纳曾读过数学家约翰·冯·诺依曼（John von Neumann）的论文，从中他明白了繁殖的前提是结构内部包含了指导再生的指令——从逻辑意义上来说，该指令与成品结构和再生资料间应该是独立分开的。尽管布伦纳并未立刻向克里克表达自己的想法，两人却不约而同地想到了DNA中基因密码的传递方式：这些密码先被转录成mRNA（messenger RNA），再经由mRNA这个“适配器”的传递最终把密码写进蛋白质里。

注：

More to the point：更精确一点来说，更切题的，更重要的

By the early 1960s they were looking for new fields. Brenner chose to apply the idea that a life form was a computer reading a program that told it how to make itself at the level of a whole organism, rather than a cell or virus. To do this, he needed an organism to study. Naturally, he looked for it in books. On a day when he was ill his wife May collected one from Heffers, a Cambridge bookshop, that introduced him to a tiny nematode worm called Caenorhabditis elegans. It turned out to be perfect; transparent, and thus easily looked into; easily frozen, too, for later use. Normally hermaphroditic, which meant it could be copied; but capable of sex, so mutants could be crossbred when necessary. Simple—just a few thousand cells in all, and with a nervous system (Brenner’s particular interest) of just 300. Quickly bred—a generation every three days. And its development was as deterministic as a programmer could wish; every adult with the same number of cells arranged the same way, every connection between nerves constant and mappable.

19世纪60年代初期，他们开始探索新的研究领域。布伦纳试图证实这样一个假想：生命的形成过程就是一个电脑读取程序并直接产生整个有机体的过程，而不仅仅只是始于单个细胞或单个细菌。为了证实这个想法，他得找个有机体进行研究。自然而然地，他选择了去书中探寻答案。在某个身体抱恙的一天，他的妻子梅（May）从剑桥一家名叫Heffers的书店中买了本书。布伦纳从这本书里读到了一种名为“秀丽隐杆线虫”的小线虫。这种线虫简直是完美的研究对象。首先，它通体透明，便于观察；其次，它冻存方便，便于日后研究使用；最后，这种线虫一般都是雌雄同体，所以可以自我繁殖；但他们也能进行交配，所以需要的时候也可以通过杂交产生突变体。除此之外，它的结构极其简单，一共只有一千多个细胞，但最让布伦纳感兴趣的是，它总数这么少的细胞中还有一整套只含有300个细胞的神经系统。它易于繁殖，发育一个世代仅需要三天。同样，它的成长过程如同电脑程序一般按部就班、确定有序：每个成年的线虫都具有相同排列方式、相同数量的细胞，且每个神经元之间的连接方式都是不变和可标示的。

注：

1.布伦纳和“诺贝尔孵化场”

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ZgRNCyZYeDBDGo51Qh0Q5Q

2.秀丽隐杆线虫

首创线虫研究，为分子生物学研究开辟一个全新领域的，正是布伦纳。布伦纳的研究特别关注秀丽隐杆线虫，并使其发展成为模式生物。

秀丽隐杆线虫是一种食细菌的线性动物，其体长度1mm，通身透明，为雌雄同体，以细菌为食，居住在土壤中，属于自由生活线虫类，对人类无害。

秀丽线虫因其遗传背景清楚、个体结构简单、生活史短、基因组测序完成等，在遗传与发育生物学、行为与神经生物学、衰老与寿命、人类遗传性疾病、病原体与生物机体的相互作用、药物筛选、动物的应急反应、环境生物学和信号传导等领域得到广泛应用。

https://m.sohu.com/a/306603306_183834/?pvid=000115_3w_a&from=groupmessage&isappinstalled=0

Brenner and his colleagues spent decades anatomising the worm’s development, its genome and the fate of all its cells. Increasingly, labs elsewhere followed suit; by one estimate the worm and its workings are now studied by 1,500 research groups around the world. Brenner, his Cambridge colleague John Sulston and Robert Horvitz of mit were awarded the Nobel prize for medicine in 2002 in recognition of their work on its developmental pathways and the ways that some cells were programmed to die in order for the desired final anatomy to take shape.

布伦纳和同事们用了几十年的时间来剖析线虫的成长过程，它的基因构成和所有细胞最后的走向。渐渐的，其他地方的实验室也纷纷开始效仿；据估计，现在全世界各地已经有1500个研究团队在研究“秀丽隐杆线虫”及其活动。2002年，诺贝尔医学奖被授予了布伦纳和他在剑桥的同事约翰·萨尔斯顿（John Sulston），麻省理工大学的罗伯特·霍维茨（Robert Horvitz），以褒奖他们对于通过研究秀丽隐杆线虫的生长发育方式而发现器官发育和细胞程序性凋亡的遗传调控机理所做出的贡献。

注：布伦纳获得诺贝尔奖的官方表述（百度百科）

悉尼·布伦纳，南非生物学家，因研究线虫动物门的秀丽隐杆线虫而发现器官发育和细胞程序性死亡的遗传调控机理，与H·罗伯特·霍维茨、约翰·E·苏尔斯顿荣获此奖。

Starter for ten

万事开头难

He was, for the most part, a starter, not a finisher, much better at opening institutions than running them. In his early years, he delighted in remembering later on, he was described as an “enfant terrible” of his field; at an age when others would retire (he never did) he re-styled himself as wily old Uncle Syd, dispensing sharp questions and half-formed provocations, surprising young researchers with an ability to know what organism they were working on by reading just a snatch of dna or protein sequence over their shoulder.

总的来说，他更像一个开创人，而不是终结者。对他来说，打天下易，守天下难。年轻时，他就在自己的研究领域中享有“捣蛋鬼”的称号，到老了还不忘津津有味地提起这事儿。而等到一般人都会退休赋闲的年纪时（当然，他从未退休），他却将自己的人设重塑为一个爱捉弄人的老头—悉尼大叔。他到处抛射尖锐问题，口出半真半假的挑衅言论。最让年轻后辈研究员们惊讶不已的是，他只消从他们身后探过头去，瞄一眼DNA片段或蛋白质序列，就能准确地说出他们正在研究的是哪种生命体。

注：

Enfant terrible：使大人难堪的孩子 a French expression, traditionally referring to a child who is terrifyingly candid by saying embarrassing things to parents or others.However, the expression has drawn multiple usage in careers of art, fashion, music, and other creative arts. In these careers, it implies a successful, and often young, "genius" who is very unorthodox, striking, and in some cases, offensive, or rebellious.

The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, gives the definition: "A child who embarrasses his elders by untimely remarks; transf. a person who compromises his associates or his party by unorthodox or ill-considered speech or behaviour; loosely, one who acts unconventionally."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfant_terrible

“Inside every animal there is an internal description of that animal,” Brenner told Judson at high table as Judson fixated on his eyebrows. Inside him sat both the reasons for the flamboyant development of those hairs and the reason such internal descriptions so fascinated him. It was a life that read itself.

“所有动物体内都自带说明书”，当年在贵宾席上布伦纳对紧盯着他眉毛看的贾德森（Judson）说道。而他体内的说明书即解释了其浓密纤长的双眉，又道出了他对生命奥秘痴迷的缘起。而他的一生恰恰是对这份说明书的解读。

翻译组：

Alex，不务正业的理工男

Rachel，爱吃火锅的处女座翻译生

Kemay，决心练好笔译的未来口译员

校核组：

Vicky，少儿英语老师，笔译新人

Dave，实力校对，肌肉男大学教师，文学翻译+CATTI一笔二口

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观点|评论|思考

本次观点由Echo全权执笔

Echo，爱英音的翻译专业学生，权游超级粉丝

读完本期文章，再次深深体会到读书的重要。正所谓：“腹有经纶气自华，胸怀天下志高远。”书籍给人以心灵的慰藉，为人装上梦想的翅膀。本期讣告主人公的梦想便是来自于书籍。儿时的他曾对图书馆里一本书爱不释手，甚至不惜代价，以弄丢书籍为借口，把那本书保留在自己的身边。一本好书，不仅是我们的良师益友，更是指引这我们前行的罗盘。The Science of Life就是悉尼布伦纳的罗盘。每每遇到困惑时，布伦纳第一想到的就是求助于书籍，这一点我们着实有必要好好学习一下，毕竟在这样一个什么都快的时代，人们似乎更偏爱于用快捷方便的方式，来获取答案，用心钻研的精神确实少见。

在我看来，布伦纳的成功，很大一部分原因归结于他找到了志同道合的好友。相识于美国，布伦纳和克里克随后成为莫逆之交，一起进行研究。他们通过实验，解释了蛋白质翻译的三元码，发现移码突变。

说到布伦纳，就不得不提到秀丽隐杆线虫。他首创线虫研究，为分子生物学开辟了一个全新的领域。（建议不知秀丽隐杆线虫为何物的同学，自行百度一下，毕竟这可是一种长度为1mm, 通身透明，雌雄同体……）

布伦纳去世，意味着科学界又一巨星的陨落，但我相信，它所散发出的光芒，永远都不会消逝。它会一直照亮着我们前行的道路，会引领我们走向更光明的未来。