For The Love Of Maps

I recently spoke at the St. Louis Beer For Science (🍺 for🔬) event, which was organized as part of the March for Science campaign. The theme of the event was “Real People, Real Science”, which to me meant that I’d rather give them a face to identify with, than throw obscure fresh-off-the-bench scientific results. With this newfound liberty, I decided to deliver an offbeat narrative about why I study what I study and why it matters.

After the talk, an organizer thought it would be a good idea for me to pen a permanent memoir based on it. So here goes:

To give you some context, I was supplanted to St Louis about two and a half years ago. In my past life in the south Indian city of Madras, I was trained as an engineer but always found myself gravitated towards basic scientific phenomena. This desire to question the fundamental nature of our being is only predated by my love for maps. Yes, maps.

Growing up, I had one of these giant world political maps wallpaper in my room (From Google Images)

A significant portion of my childhood was spent into learning names of unsung cities and memorizing capitals of nations. Friends who’d visit me would inevitably have to partake in a game of “find the city” on this map. (My favorite was Des Moines, capital of Iowa. Thanks to its counterintuitive pronunciation, unsuspecting opponents would usually be lost in Europe.) Right through childhood, all I wanted to do was explore the map in finer detail and perhaps contribute to it. To my dismay, sailors and cartographers had already charted out the world maps in great detail over a 100 years ago.

At the same time, I started developing an interest in star gazing. I spent countless nights looking up towards the seemingly never-ending night sky for hours at a stretch, dreaming of possible distant worlds and space exploration. Again, to my dismay, space travel seemed* centuries away. (*But 10-yr old me may have been somewhat wrong.)

And then came the big news in 2003: The Human Genome had been sequenced and completely mapped. And that’s when it struck me: now that they have the genome charted out, they would need explorers!!

The serendipitous calling (adapted with changes from shutterstock.com)

Maps are an abstraction of reality. They illustrate and reinforce our ideas about the world around us. What we see, what we don’t see, and what we’re not willing to see. How we think about the world around us. What is important to us and what is not. All these things “appear” on our maps. Maps, hence, help us understand and navigate the world. This is true of geographical, astronomical as well as genomic maps, all of which share some common, basic elements:

1. Accurate location of features on a map
2. Legend/key: The portrayal of map information through symbols
3. The information about (or attributes of) each feature.
4. The transformation of a three-dimensional (globe) surface onto a two-dimensional plane (the map).

The information about (or attributes of) each feature

The Human Genome Project was responsible for charting the map of the human genome. It found that about 2% of the genome codes for genes that produce proteins, which can be thought of as tiny biomachines that perform routine cellular functions. About 50% of the human genome was found to be composed of repetitive elements. Repeats were often described as “junk” and dismissed as uninteresting. However, they represent an extraordinary treasure trove of information about biological processes. These repeats constitute a rich paleontological record, holding crucial clues about evolutionary events and forces.

A large majority of repeats are transposable elements (TEs). These are a special class of short DNA sequences that either have or once had the ability to autonomously replicate and move around in the genome. That is, they have/had the ability to cut and paste or copy and paste themselves to new locations in the genome. Through this repeated cutting/copying and pasting in the past, TEs now comprise around 50% of the human (and mouse and several organisms) genome sequence. This has earned them the dubious title of “space invaders”. While some TEs are shared between species that share a common ancestor, other TEs are species-specific.

TEs were first discovered in the late 1940s by Barbara McClintock in maize. She called them “controlling elements”, as they controlled the expression of genes including ones involved in the plethora of maize kernel color as shown here. Much of her early work went unnoticed, but regained importance much later and led to her being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983 for discovering genetic transposition.

Increasingly, as we gain more layers of information and understand our genome map better, we find that TEs play extremely important functions in humans as well. Just as in maize, they can tinker levels of various proteins by regulating expression of its genes. Hence, when TEs paste themselves near genes they can have profound effects on the way those genes are regulated, both in health and disease. Despite their known roles in gene regulation, TEs remain poorly characterized.

Transposable elements a.k.a. dark matter of the genome: They are so abundant, yet we know very little about them. We know its present, but we don’t know all of its functions.

Although my day job title should ideally read genome explorer, it states graduate student for now. My current research involves understanding the role of transposable elements in genome plasticity, regulation and innovation. This research provides the foundation to surveil the impact of TEs and expand our understanding of genomes and the evolution of their underlying regulatory code. This can help us answer questions like why do our blood cells look and function very similar to a mouse’s; even though we are such different organisms.

We’re just about scratching the surface and there’s plenty to explore! Not only do genome explorers explore; but just like sailors have in the past (and space explorers in the near future), we bridge the gap between two worlds—one that we live in and the other that most cannot even dream of. We bring back knowledge from our conquests and explorations for the human race to share, cherish and benefit from.

None of which would’ve been possible without funding basic exploratory science and the tremendous contributions of umpteen researchers to the scientific cause. Just like maps, these researchers come in all shapes, sizes and colors. And I’m grateful to work with an excellent, diverse bunch.

And here’s where the anti-science and xenophobic stance of the current administration has struck me hard. From issuing gag orders to silence governmental agencies and scientists, to removing scientific data from government websites and proposing drastic funding cuts. It aches my heart to see the nonexistent role of scientific rationality and abandonment of evidence-based policymaking. This is also #WhyIMarch.

We need science to thrive and survive. The earlier we realize better it is. So, science advocates, educators, scientists, and concerned citizens, I hope to see many of you out there tomorrow. And know that you are not just joining a #ScienceMarch, but a movement—April 22nd, it begins.

As a kid, all I wanted to do was explore maps. And here I am, 15-something years later, doing what I’ve always loved. Here’s to more exploration—somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

For the love of science! 🍻