James Watson e Francis Crick: investigando concepções prévias com alunos concluintes do ensino médio a respeito desses cientistas

A pesquisa buscou investigar as concepções de setenta e oito alunos de terceiro ano do ensino médio a respeito da imagem e do nome dos cientistas James Watson e Francis Crick, através de questionários aplicados aos estudantes em três escolas públicas do município XXX. O instrumento, composto por duas partes investigou o reconhecimento de cientistas através de imagens sem nomeação e outras imagens nominadas, tendo sido recolhido e analisado. Os resultados mostram que o uso de imagens ainda é bastante restrito em sala de aula; não tendo sido reconhecidos de forma significativa nenhum dos dois cientistas apresentados. Apresentar de forma adequada e humanizada as construções a respeito da Ciência pode contribuir para um ensino de ciências, mais interessante, facilitando a aprendizagem, e demonstrando que a ciência não é imutável, e consiste em um processo lento, aonde diversos cientistas estão envolvidos, sendo impossível “descobrir” algo tão rápido como num piscar de olhos.

The History and Challenges of Women in Genetics: A Focus on Non-Western Women

“Women in much of the world lack support for fundamental functions of a human life.” This truthful portrait was pointed out by Martha Nussbaum in her book “Introduction: Feminism & International Development.” Throughout history, gender inequality has been persistent in many aspects of life, including health and empowerment. Unfortunately, this inequality has not been excluded from the field of science. Perpetual assumption that women’s absence or restriction to secondary roles in various disciplines is an acceptable law of nature misrepresents women’s contribution to science and maintains hurdles for participation in the future. According to a recent UNESCO’s report, women make up only 30% of researchers worldwide. But despite all the obstacles, women made major contributions with discoveries that shaped the progress in many scientific fields. In the field of genetics, Rosalind Franklin is an example of unwittingly compromised women’s scientific achievements. Franklin was an expert in X-ray crystallography; her data, especially the “photo 51,” was critical to James Watson and Francis Crick along with their own data to publish the discovery of the double helix DNA structure in 1953. Her contribution was acknowledged posthumously in Watson’s memoir in 1968. Barbara McClintock was a 20th century American cytogeneticist who remains up to date the only woman receiving an unshared Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine. McClintock dedicated her work to cytogenetics and discovered the phenomenon of mobile genes. Her research was initially subjected to skepticism in the 1950s. It was not until the late 1960s that the community realized the significance of McClintock’s discovery. The history of science is occupied with a myriad of similar tales of such inspiring women that, after tremendous struggles, thrived and achieved breakthroughs in their respective fields. It is prominent our limited knowledge of women’s experience and struggle in science in non-western world. Addressing the stories of this outstanding minority is critical to expand the understanding of the gender disparity factors embedded in diverse cultures. In this article, we attempt to put the spotlight on some fascinating non-western women and their significant contributions to the field of genetics.

On the Shoulders of Giants

In discovering DNA’s structure, while James Watson and Francis Crick stood on the shoulders of Rosalind Franklin, there remains another unsung heroine upon whose shoulders Franklin herself stood.

Cell scientist to watch – Vivian Li

ABSTRACT Vivian Li obtained her PhD from the University of Hong Kong in 2008, where she investigated the molecular mechanisms of human colonic development and tumorigenesis. Funded by a Croucher Foundation Fellowship, she joined the lab of Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands for her postdoctoral work. There, she identified novel Wnt signalling mechanisms at different subcellular levels and characterised intestinal stem cell genes using newly created transgenic mouse models. Vivian established her group at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research, which is now part of the Francis Crick Institute, London, in February 2013. In her lab she uses genetic mouse models and organoids to investigate the regulation of intestinal homeostasis and cancer with a primary focus on the Wnt signalling pathway. Vivian was awarded a Future Leaders in Cancer Research Prize in 2018 by Cancer Research UK and is the winner of the 2021 Women in Cell Biology Early Career Medal awarded by the British Society for Cell Biology.

First person – Ines Alvarez Rodrigo

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Ines Alvarez Rodrigo is first author on ‘ Ana1 helps recruit Polo to centrioles to promote mitotic PCM assembly and centriole elongation’, published in JCS. Ines conducted the research described in this article while a PhD student in Jordan Raff's lab at Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford, UK. She is now a postdoc in the lab of J. P. Vincent at The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK, investigating applying advanced microscopy techniques to study Wnt signalling during development.

First person – Anna Dowbaj

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Anna Dowbaj is co-first author on ‘ An optogenetic method for interrogating YAP1 and TAZ nuclear–cytoplasmic shuttling’, published in JCS. Anna conducted the work described in this article while a PhD student in the lab of Erik Sahai at the Francis Crick Institute, London, UK. She is now a postdoc in the lab of Meritxell Huch at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG), Dresden, Germany, investigating the role of the stem cell niche in liver regeneration.

The Importance and Challenges for Analytical Chemistry in Proteomics Analysis

Although Linus Pauling had an exceptional scientific contribution to the study of chemical bonds, reported in his book The Nature of Chemical Bond, the lousy image he got for the X-ray diffraction drove him to an unstable structure with an unreal DNA triple helix publication. Oppositely, for the consecration of James Watson & Francis Crick, they had the opportunity to enter science history using the right image of X-ray to propose the famous DNA double helix structure correctly. This chapter of science is an excellent example of how analytical chemistry performance affects horizons and scientific advances. Today the complexity of the systems is more significant and understanding how all proteins truly work into cells and organisms is the current challenge from proteomics. Comprehending how analysis is carried out and how instruments work could promote new insights to improve the analytical performance in proteomics. Here we described an overview based on our expertise on the analytical chemistry toolkit for proteomics analysis: shotgun, bottom-up, middle-down, top-down, and native proteomics, and their inherent instrumentation technologies. In addition, a detailed discussion of the analytical figures of merit in proteomics analysis is provided. We also address the limitations in multidimensional liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry platforms. Furthermore, we present some perspectives in bioinformatics, mathematical modeling simulations, and chemometrics tools, as well.

First person – Elliott Bernard

ABSTRACTFirst Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Elliott Bernard is first author on ‘M. tuberculosis infection of human iPSC-derived macrophages reveals complex membrane dynamics during xenophagy evasion’, published in JCS. Elliott is a PhD student in the lab of Maximiliano (Max) Gutierrez at The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK, investigating the cell biology of the endolysosomal and autophagy systems and their dysfunction in disease.

Wyzwania antropologii chrześcijańskiej w dobie neuronauk

Challenges of Christian anthropology in the age of neurosciences The article deal with problem of the soul from the perspective of the science. Its purpose is to analyze the views of Francis Crick presented in the book The Astonishing Hypothesis – The Scientific Search for the Soul. The famous Nobel Prize winner tries to refute the religious view that man has a soul by referring to the research of the human brain. Crick’s thesis is as follows: the soul hypothesis must be rejected because of mental phenomena can be explained based on the work of the neurons. The scenario adopted in this way raises some problems. Some of them are outlined in this article. Artykuł podejmuje problem duszy w perspektywie neuronauk. Jego celem jest analiza poglądów Francisa Cricka przedstawionych w książce Zdumiewająca hipoteza, czyli nauka w poszukiwaniu duszy. Słynny noblista usiłuje obalić religijny pogląd, że człowiek posiada duszę, przez odwołanie się do badań ludzkiego mózgu. Teza Cricka jest następująca: Należy odrzucić hipotezę duszy, ponieważ wszelkie zjawiska umysłowe można wyjaśnić w oparciu o pracę neuronów. Tak przyjęty scenariusz rodzi pewne problemy. Niniejszy artykuł przedstawia niektóre z nich.