QuoteProject
As was predicted at the beginning of the Human Genome Project, getting the sequence will be the easy part as only technical issues are involved. The hard part will be finding out what it means, because this poses intellectual problems of how to understand the participation of the genes in the functions of living cells.
Sydney Brenner
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Sequencing the human genome is relatively simple, but interpreting its significance is complex.

This quote from Sydney Brenner highlights the dichotomy between the technical achievement of sequencing the human genome and the intellectual challenge of understanding the implications of that sequence. While advancements in technology have made it feasible to read genetic codes, deciphering their meanings and roles in biological processes remains a profound scientific challenge that requires deeper insights into genetics and cellular function.

Themes

GenomeScienceGeneticsUnderstandingCell Function

In practice

Example use cases

In a science presentation about the future of genomics.

More from Sydney Brenner

The thing I'm most interested in is the nervous system. How do brains grow? How do genes build complicated nervous systems?
Sydney BrennerRead
People have always asked whether evolution is constantly driving onwards and upwards. Is there always going to be improvement? The answer is no: evolution is a progression of form and function, but it is not purposeful.
Sydney BrennerRead
The moment I saw the model and heard about the complementing base pairs I realized that it was the key to understanding all the problems in biology we had found intractable - it was the birth of molecular biology.
Sydney BrennerRead
The art of doing science is doing the important things first.
Sydney BrennerRead
It is now widely realized that nearly all the 'classical' problems of molecular biology have either been solved or will be solved in the next decade. The entry of large numbers of American and other biochemists into the field will ensure that all the chemical details of replication and transcription will be elucidated. Because of this, I have long felt that the future of molecular biology lies in the extension of research to other fields of biology, notably development and the nervous system.
Sydney BrennerRead

Similar quotes

Perfection is crucial in building an aircraft, a bridge, or a high-speed train. The code and mathematics residing just below the surface of the Internet is also this way. Things are either perfectly right or they will not work. So much of the world we work and live in is based upon being correct, being perfect.
Bren BrownRead
In the history of physics, there have been three great revolutions in thought that first seemed absurd yet proved to be true. The first proposed that the earth, instead of being stationary, was moving around at a great and variable speed in a universe that is much bigger than it appears to our immediate perception. That proposal, I believe, was first made by Aristarchos two millenia ago ... Remarkably enough, the name Aristarchos in Greek means best beginning.
Edward TellerRead
Science is complex and chilling. The mathematical language of science is understood by very few. The vistas it presents are scary-an enormous universe ruled by chance and impersonal rules, empty and uncaring, ungraspable and vertiginous. How comfortable to turn instead to a small world, only a few thousand years old, and under God's personal; and immediate care; a world in which you are His peculiar concern.
Isaac AsimovRead
Data is like garbage. You'd better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.
Mark TwainRead
We need to start thinking about the future of food if we are going to feed 9 billion people in a way that does not destroy our environment.
Bill GatesRead
The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.
Ernest RutherfordRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.